There has been much more attention paid by trainers, the media, researchers and trainers to special populations inside our nation's correctional facilities. Special populations include mentally disordered inmates, female inmates, mature/elderly inmates, minorities and foreign inmates, youthful offenders and juveniles, gangs, inmates with sexual identity issues and inmates in segregation or isolation. What would be some guidelines that you would like to see implemented regarding the special populations.

The overarching question, is the criminal justice system racist against certain groups? Next choose two different populations and rationalize your thoughts to include the following aspects in the discussion:

• does race, gender, ethnicity play a role in inmate treatment
• safety for the officers and inmates
• an inmate falling into a special population category and possibly being in jail/prison for the first time