Institute for Jail Administration

There are over 3,100 local jails and 80 Indian country jails in the United States with a combined population on any given day of over 660,000 people. While these facilities vary drastically in size and age, the leaders of these facilities have more in common than not. Large or small, rural, or urban, the vast majority face the same challenges: staffing, succession planning, training, culture, resource shortages, data analysis, health care, substance abuse disorders, mental illness, facility design and operations, and early identification of trends and emerging issues within their populations, to name a few. And while there are commonalities among the many, the responsibility to the public for the life, health, and safety of the people in their custody and their employees while administering a constitutionally run jail is considerable and common to all.The Institute for Jail Administration (IJA) provides training to personnel in positions of leadership within local or tribal organizations responsible for operating a jail or that have a nexus to jail operations. The IJA assists them as leaders within their organizations and equips them to manage essential aspects of administering a jail and prepares them for positions of greater responsibility.