CJ In the Know

This month, the Corrections Management Institute of Texas (CMIT) welcomed senior and executive leaders from various Mexican states to the  College of Criminal Justice . The Executive Leadership Forum brings executives from different countries to share information, learn from each other and correctional experts from across the United States, and most importantly, help advance corrections from a global standpoint. This program began in 2018 when CMIT’s Executive Director, Doug Dretke, was contacted by the U.S. Department of State’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Division to develop and deliver an Executive Leadership program. Since its inception, the Executive Leadership Program has welcomed numerous correctional leaders from across the world in an effort to enhance law enforcement and corrections agencies.     With the help of top U.S. executive corrections leaders as instructors, the program has quickly blossomed into a valuable resource for correc...

Jazmin Palacios is a first year Ph.D. student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Sam Houston State University’s College of Criminal Justice , studying the effects of temperature in prisons by combining her concerns about climate change and her interests in criminal justice. Through her research, Palacios found that rising temperatures across the globe are linked to major climate hazards. Studies have shown that 2019 closed out the hottest decade ever recorded. In 2021, the CDC found that more than 600 people in the U.S. die from extreme heat every year. Although most correctional facilities were built after the invention of air conditioning, at least 13 states in the US South do not have universal air conditioning in their prisons. Palacios found that in just Texas, only 30 out of the 109 correctional facilities have air conditioning. She also found that most Texas inmates who died from causes related to heat did so because the prison system failed to provide s...