III

The role of prison staff is crucial for the effective management of correctional institution. The task of prison staff is to segregate offenders from society and rehabilitate them to become a sound citizen. Because prison staff deals with offenders who are deviated from common lives in society, their duties of reforming the offenders are very difficult to perform. Especially, as inmates are to be incarcerated within the wall, which make it more difficult for prison staff to treat and guide them toward sound citizens.

Under this situation, recruitment, training and career development of prison staff are very important to achieve the goal of rehabilitating offenders. Success in the correctional administration of a nation might be said dependent upon the abilities and integrity of prison staff.

Correctional officers are appointed according to the methods of new employment, promotion, and transfer prescribed in the State Civil Service Law and its decree. Guards (Grade 9th) are appointed under the open competitive examinations prescribed in the State Civil Service Appointment Ordinance and the Enforcement Decree. The appointment of senior guards (Grade 8th) is made mainly according to the promotion screening method based on the candidate's service record.

The physical conditions for being recruited as new correctional officer are as follows;

For the appointment of correctional assistant supervisors (Grade 7th) both the open competitive examination system and a promotion screening method based on the service record are concurrently adopted for the fair treatment and the raise of morale. For the purpose of improving the treatment and enhancing the morale of lower positions of correctional officers, the correctional authorities have introduced a new promotion system that upgrades automatically guards and senior guards to the next ranks without promotion examination or promotion screening after a certain period has passed. This system is very welcomed by the lower-ranked officers. If guard(Grade 9th) would work for 7 years, he or she will promote to a senior guard(Grade 8th). In the same way, if a senior guard would work for 8 years, he or she will promote to an assistant supervisor (Grade 7th).

For correctional supervisors(Grade 6th), the appointment is made according to the competitive promotion test or a promotion screening method based on the service record. For the appointment of assistant superintendents(Grade 5th), both the general promotion test and the open competitive examination are conducted because of the nature of their duties. The open competitive examination which is the highest national test for the recruitment of public officers are conducted every 2 years, by which 5 new assistant superintendents are selected.

For the promotion of officials in Grade 4th and above, the promotion screening methods based on their services are adopted. Because they will become the wardens of correctional facilities and be responsible for managing them, they have to acquire an ability to efficiently operate a facility with the respected leadership, and sufficient correctional administrative experiences.

As indicated in the Table I-2, un-uniformed officers are classified in Education officer, Classification officer, Medical officers, Mechanics, and etc. While sworn officers can be promoted to Commissioner (2^nd Grade), Education officers can be promoted to 3^rd Grade and Classification officers to 4^th Grade.

Before 1995, education and classification officers were recruited through a special test by the Ministry of Justice among those who majored in Criminology, Psychology, Sociology, and Criminal Policies. Since 1995, like correctional officers, they have been recruited through the National Public Officers Competitive Examination managed by the Ministry of Administration regardless of their majors. The subjects of the examination are mainly composed of Criminology, Psychology, Sociology, and Criminal Policies.

The Civil Service Commission of Korea, the head office of being responsible for public personnel, introduced “the Open-Type Public Position System” to recruit excellent specialists from private sector for some high public officers’ positions since 1999. According to this policy, the Correction Bureau rendered three positions to civilian specialists such as professor, doctor, criminologist, and lawyer. The three positions are Director of Correctional Staffs’ Training Center, Warden of Chunan Open Correctional Institution, and Director of the Educational Reformation Division of Correction Bureau.

Correctional officers need to have the professional knowledge and dedicated sense of mission due to the speciality of the job whose goal is to segregate and rehabilitate prisoners. Therefore, the correctional authorities are providing the continual training courses for correctional officers to raise their ability to handle many practical matters and to rear the high moral standards.

(1) Correctional Officials Training Department under the Legal Research and Training Institute

Correctional Officials Training Department belongs to the Legal and Training Institute under the Ministry of Justice. The Legal and Training Institute is a professional education institution affiliated to the Ministry of Justice for training correctional officers, as well as prosecutors, probation officers(community-based correctional officers), and immigration officers. The Correctional Officials Training Department has been established as almost independent from the main institute and operated by its own program because of the speciality of training for correctional officers. The training courses of correctional officers are classified into three parts; Basic course, Professional course, and Special training course.

Trainees for this course are assistant superintendents(Grade 5th) who will be promoted to superintendents (Grade 4th) in the near future. The goal of the course is to advance the ability of establishing a correctional policy and of managing correctional facilities effectively. The training period of the course is 3 months. The trainees participating in the course are exchanging their opinions on the contemporary issues of correctional administration during the course.

Those who have passed the promotion examination or the National High-Class Examination are trained for managing correctional facilities as chief managers. This course lasts for 3 weeks. The emphasis of this course is to teach trainees how to confront with the rapidly changing situations in operating their administering divisions or sections efficiently.

Those who pass the National assistant correctional supervisor (Grade 7th) examination are taught the basic knowledge of correctional administration, establishment and revision of Penal Administration Law and many kinds of ordinances relating to the correctional administration, public servants' ethics, role of middle-class officers in correctional facilities, and ability of managing the guards' on-the-spot service. They are trained for 20 weeks by the significance of the course, which is essential for the newly appointed correctional officers.

Those who are promoted to assistant correctional supervisors by screening method based on the service record and get a special promotion by exemplary accomplishments in correctional services, are taught the advanced knowledge about correctional administration, establishment and revision of Penal Administration Law and many kinds of ordinances relating to the correctional administration, ability of managing the guards' on-the-spot service, and role of middle-class officers in correctional facilities, and awareness of current situation of corrections for 6 weeks.

Newly recruited guards(Grade 9th) are trained to learn the public service ethic, on-the-spot working ability, measures of inmate treatment, and so on. Especially, trainees of Junior Newcomers Course should lodge in the training center through the training period except weekends.

Classification	Total	Basic Knowledge	Job Performance Training	Administration
Amount of Time	713	136	561	12
Percentage	100	18.4%	79.9%	1.7%

With regard to a various kind of correctional works, the Correctional Officials Training Department establishes the 17 courses of training such as Correction Manager Course, Special Security Course, Classification Manager Course, Prison Industry Course, and Reformation Course for 1 week. Each course of these specializes in the particular field for extensive development of the trainees. Many specialists of universities or institutes are invited to these courses for lecturing their own experiences and the updated knowledge.

In order to treat foreign offenders in correctional institutions, and to handle international affairs concerning correctional administration, the English, Japanese or Chinese Conversation Course are provided for correctional officers for between 6 weeks and 12 weeks every year. As the number of foreign inmates has gradually increased in recent years and relationships between our Correction Bureau and other countries' correction bureaus are more strengthened than the past, the Foreign Language Courses are very useful to confront with these issues.

For the purpose of learning the general knowledge about corrections-related science, some correctional officers attend universities by the Consignment Training program. Those who are selected for the program receive all the tuition during their study in the universities. The recipients of this program can attend the graduate studies in universities for 2 years. Some correctional officers enroll the Korean Broadcasting University in order to continue to study the corrections-related science. Also the Korean Correctional Association endows the selected officers with allowances for continuing their studies.

Furthermore, some competent correctional officers are dispatched to universities or institutes of foreign countries to conduct the comparative study. In this case, the expenses needed for living and study in other countries are provided by the central government (the Ministry of Administration). Meantime, computers have become essential instruments for correctional officers. Therefore, correctional institutions let their officers learn how to use computers through the consignment programs.

In order to teach the regulations of Penal Administration Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and basic concept of criminal psychology or counseling to correctional officers, every correctional institution administers the yearly schedule of self-run training. In this regard, each correctional institution invites the outside lecturers with its own budget, and sometimes correctional officers get the practical training or martial arts training courses such as Taekwondo, judo, and etc.

The Ministry of Justice with association with Seoul Press selects honorable correctional officers who have made a great success in rehabilitating prisoners once a year, and rewards the Grand Prize of Corrections. Also those officers who receive the awards have the privilege to be promoted to the next ranks. Reward of this prize is the highest grace for correctional officers, thus contributing to the enhancement of morale of them.

Those who have performed distinguished services in protecting prisoners' lives and bodies from self-hurt and disaster, preventing their escape from the correctional facilities, preventing invasion from outside the wall and riots inside, and in maintaining order in prison are eligible to be promoted to the next ranks. Promotion Committee of Ministry of Justice examines and promotes the lower-ranked officers (Grade 9th and Grade 8th), thus contributing to raising the morale of lower-ranked correctional officers.

In the movement of globalization of our nation, correctional authorities have also expanded the opportunities of abroad study and observation in order to develop job careers and to raise the morale of correctional officers. Currently the Correction Bureau has expanded opportunities for correctional officers to go abroad to study the advanced correctional administration in other countries.

There three kinds of abroad study programs for correctional officers; Short and Long term training by the Ministry of Administration, Short term training by Correction Bureau, and Short term Observation by Correction Bureau. These programs has highly contributed to the study of foreign countries’ correctional administration and the enhancement of morale of correctional officers as well.

- Short term Observation; US(12), Japan(10), Hong Kong(10), Australia(10), New Zealand(10), Thailand(16), Singapore (16), UK(15), Italy(15), China(8), Germany(3)

- Participating in International Conference; APCCA(4), ICPA(3), APCCA Working Group Meeting(3), Korean-Japanese Correctional Officials’ Judo and Kendo (Swordmanship) Friendship Game(20)

Classification	Subjects of Training
Basic Knowledge	Public Service Ethics, Important Policies of the State, Technology of Communication, Tour of Industrial Factories, Self-Control, Exercise
Job Performance Training	Penology, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Correctional Psychology, Public Administration, Assistant Correctional Supervisor's Duties, Practical Training, Martial Arts
Administration	Correctional Administration Practice, Computer Handling
On-The-Spot Training	On-the-Spot Training