So folks, what is there about all these terms used to describe prison bureaucracies and employees? In my youth, I lived "down the river" from "up the river". The river was the Hudson River in New York. And being sent "up the river" meant going to serve time in scenic Sing Sing Prison. It was the home of Old Sparky, the end of the line for Death Row inmates. In those days as I recall states had Departments or Bureaus of Prison, not Departments of Correction. Prisons were prisons or penitentiaries, not correctional facilities. Guards were guards, not correction officers. Then something called rehabilitation happened, and names seemed to change to reflect the notion that the function of prison wasn't just punishment, but was returning somehow "corrected" wrong-doers to society through a process of change called rehabilitation. The fact that there was no proof prison rehabilitation was any more effective than inmates aging didn't deter reformers from pushing program after program through state legislatures, and before long we had Departments of Correction or Correctional Departments. Not that prisons didn't need reform. Pity the guards who had to work in the squalor of dilapidated prisons without modern equipment that made their jobs safer and more tolerable. The fact of the matter was that even these old fashioned prisons often provided more amenities than the inmates had on the outside. Even garbage men get new garbage trucks. Why shouldn't prison employees have as decent a work environment as possible?

But what does corrections mean? Basically it means "to correct" and in this context, to correct illegal behavior. It isn't quite clear what grammatical form the word should take. Hence we have correction officers, corrections officers and correctional officers; and Departments of Correction and Departments of Corrections. Does this mean some states are trying to correct just a single bad behavior while other more ambitious states are trying to correct several bad behaviors?

Of course any C.O., cop or con knows that the main deterrent to crime is the possibility of getting caught and punished for it. We all know that what keeps people from returning to a life of crime after a prison term is that their stay was unpleasant and they don't want to go back. The millions of dollars spent on rehabilitation might better be spent on improving the parole system if the purpose is assuring that inmates don't break the law after they're released. In fact, if we're going to give the inmates education and job training, why not do it once they've proved themselves through good behavior in prison by getting paroled. Job training programs for former inmates might be a better approach than sinking money into programs for inmates who could care less.

Not that inmates shouldn't work while in prison. After all, aside from protecting all of us from predators, prison is the means for punishing people for committing bad deeds and exacting some form of retribution from them. Inmates should have to give something more tangible back to society. It is bad enough a society has to expend human resources on maintaining prisons and prisoners, without having to expend economic resources as well. The ideal prison should be as self-sustaining as possible. In addition to helping run the physical plant of the facility, prisoners should work at revenue generating jobs others don't want to do. Electronic monitoring through tamper-proof ankle devices can be used to bring back more outside-the-wall work crews for more prisoners. If certain manufacturing jobs are so intolerable for first and second world countries that companies are setting up shop in third world countries, why not use our own prisons instead. I'm not advocating sweat shop conditions, but tasks that workers in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere find "beneath them" because they are mindless and repetitious could be done in humane conditions in our prisons. Why shouldn't the garment industry use prison labor, for example? Let some convicted criminal learn to sew. Why not?

Getting back to what we actually call our prison systems, I think a change in approach might lead to a change in what we call our prison bureaucracies. No, the State Department of Punishment won't do. I think it is time to have the name reflect the philosophy good citizens believe in and what researchers in criminal behavior have long known, that rehabilitation is a hit or miss proposition at best, and depends far more on the individual inmate than the facility he or she is housed in. I believe in treating prisoners humanely, after all, two wrongs don't make a right. We should offer them opportunities to better themselves, within reason, while incarcerated as long as these come after they pay their debt to society by earning their keep. Just like those of us on the outside, inmates should choose between education and recreation. If you want to change careers, your current boss isn't going to let you use work time to prepare yourself. Television or text books, their choice.

As for the name, I propose we call our prison bureaus Departments of Rectitude, from the Latin rectus, which means right or straight. Now, I'm not one for bringing little used words back into vogue for frivolous purposes, but rectitude seems the one word that fits. It means simply CONDUCT ACCORDING TO MORAL PRINCIPLES, STRICT HONESTY AND UPRIGHTNESS OF CHARACTER. A Department of Moral Principles, Strict Honesty and Uprightness of Character. Why not?