Criminal Justice 101: Milestone One - Communication and Collaboration

This assignment solution addresses the importance of communication and collaboration within the criminal justice system, as required for JUS 101 Milestone One. It explores the differing abilities of police officers, probation officers, and prison guards to conduct legal searches, emphasizing the need for warrants and the context of prisoner privacy. The solution also examines the process of obtaining information about prisoner communications and visitors, detailing the necessary steps for police officers to collaborate with correctional facility staff. Furthermore, it outlines the role of probation officers in creating pre-sentence reports, including information gathering, analysis, and recommendations. The assignment also analyzes the Estelle v. Gamble case, highlighting its impact on healthcare provisions for inmates and the interagency collaboration it necessitated. Finally, the solution identifies the career path of a police officer as most aligned with effective communication and collaboration practices, underlining the need for scrutiny and protection of citizens.

Criminal Justice 101 Milestone One: Communication and Collaboration
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a) Police officers are allowed to do legal searches if they have a potential cause to do so. However, in
certain circumstances, they would require an official warrant issued by the judge. On the other hand,
a probation officer can do legal searches without a warrant when the court asks them to do the same.
The prison guards are given the permission to do legal searches at any given point of time since the
prisoners have no privacy rights when compared to the privacy rights of citizens in case of police
officers and probation officers. Interagency collaboration happens when conducting a legal search
happens when public safety is to be assured, to exemplify, police officers tend to work with the
probation officers in case of child custody cases, protection of children, prevention of a possible
criminal activity etc. (Falla, 2017).
b) To get knowledge about who a prisoner speaks to on the phone and the kind of people who have
visited the prisoner while he/she serves their sentence, a police officer is required to gain an official
statement/order from the justice department by stating the cause of suspicion and how the
information is expected to help in the current investigations of another case. A police officer will
have to work with the prison guard or the head of the correctional facility staff since they have the
authority to grant the permissions and keep a record of such information from time to time (Duwe,
2017).
c) The responsibility for the formation and conduction of a pre-sentence report is given to the
probation officer who collects all significant, relevant and appropriate information that would assist
the court in giving the right sentencing for passing the judgement rationally. The probation officer
must include his/her recommendations based on the findings and specific analysis of the crime and
the role of the criminal in the same. The report is then shared between the agency, the court and the
correctional facility (Hsieh, Hafoca, Woo and Wormer, 2015).

d) The case chosen for this section is that of the Estelle v. Gamble where the communication and
collaboration was highly identified. Due to this case, the court found that the healthcare provisions
given to the prisoners or inmates was extremely lacking which was a break of the 8th amendment of
the US constitution. The case helped in bringing together an analysis of the numerous cases wherein
individuals like Gamble did not receive appropriate amount of healthcare which caused high number
of repercussions for the inmates and their futures once they had served their sentences. The
defendants in the case were the prison officials but it also involved other departments since their
contributions assisted in deciding whether the need for healthcare was crucial or not. The judge
declared that the provision of healthcare would be given to prisoners in any circumstances (Conway,
2009).
e) The career path that is more in line with my communication and collaboration practices is that of a
police officer. This career path was chosen since it overlaps with other branches of criminal justice
as well and helps in scrutinizing criminals while protecting the citizens from their crimes as well.

References
Conway, C. A. (2009). A Right to Access to Medical and Mental Health Care for the Incarcerated.
[online]. Retrieved from: https://www.law.uh.edu/healthlaw/perspectives/2009/(CC)%20Prison
%20Health.pdf. [Last Accessed: 18th May 2019]
Duwe, G. (2017). The Use and Impact of Correctional Programming for Inmates on Pre- and Post-
Release Outcomes. National Institute of Justice: U.S. Department of Justice.
Falla, K. (2017). Criminal Justice System: The Critical Elements. Southern New Hampshire
University.
Hsieh, M. L., Hafoca, M., Woo, Y. and Wormer, J. (2015). Probation Officer Roles: A Statutory
Analysis. Federal Probation. Vol 79(3).