The American Correctional Association (ACA) is a professional corrections organization composed of individuals, agencies and organizations involved in all facets of the corrections field, including adult and juvenile services, community corrections, probation and parole and jails. It has thousands of members in the United States, Canada and other nations, as well as over 100 chapters and affiliates representing states, professional specialties, or university criminal justice programs. For more than 152 years, ACA has been the driving force in establishing national/international correctional policies and advocating safe, humane and effective correctional operations. Today, ACA is the world-wide authority on correctional policy and performance-based standards, expected practices, disseminating the latest information and advances to members, governments, policymakers, individual correctional workers and departments of correction. ACA was founded in 1870 as the National Prison Association and became the American Prison Association in 1907. At its first meeting in Cincinnati, the assembly elected Rutherford B. Hayes, then governor of Ohio and later U.S. president, as the first president of the association. At that same meeting, a Declaration of Principles was developed, which became the accepted guidelines for corrections in the United States and Europe. Please visit our website at www.aca.org to obtain complete history and activities of ACA.
Education/Training