Policies and Procedures of Corrections Mass incarceration is a major issue in the United States, usually describing the skyrocketing numbers of incarcerated individuals in prisons over the past four decades. Statistics indicate that the United...Read More
~Posted on
Nov 2019
Policies
and Procedures of Corrections
Mass incarceration is a major issue in
the United States, usually describing the skyrocketing numbers of incarcerated
individuals in prisons over the past four decades. Statistics indicate that the
United States is the leading country in the world when it comes to
incarcerating citizens. While America hosts 5% of the world’s population,
around 25% of that population is imprisoned. American prison and jail
population is said to have increased from less than 200,000 45 years ago to
over 2.2 million currently. The result is overcrowding in prisons as well as
the budget ("Mass Incarceration", 2017).
The increasing concern has led to researchers and authors including David
Garland (The Culture of Control,2002), and Michelle Alexander (The New Jim
Crow,2012). Garland analyzes criminal justice and crime control in UK and USA
whereas Alexander focuses on racial injustice (primarily on African Americans)
in United States mass incarceration.
Community-based corrections, effectivity,
drawbacks
Community-based corrections programs in
the United States manages culprits outside jail or prison. Such programs are
usually carried out by courts or agencies with legal authorization to punish
the offenders. Two most popular community-based corrections include parole and
probation. Parole includes conditional release from prison and requires
supervision. Probation, on the other hand, includes correctional supervision
that is conducted within the community ("Community
Corrections | National Institute of Justice", 2018). The offenders
may be unsupervised, supervised or highly supervised. Other strategies include;
•
Day treatment facilities
•
Residential treatment facilities
•
Special sentence supervision
•
Electronic monitoring (component of parole or probation)
These strategies have been gradually
implemented across different states to help reduce overcrowding in jail and
prisons. In fact, as of today, the United States boasts of the highest number
of community-based corrections programs in the world. Such alternatives are
arguably more effective in minimizing recidivism than conventional prisons.
They are also cheaper than prisons. However, one of the biggest drawbacks about
community-based corrections is if they really work and the rate of their
success. Whereas the programs seem to be effective in reducing recidivism, some
researchers have boldly suggested that the theory is misled. If it’s all about
community safety, it’s reported that these programs offer no more than
traditional prisons and jail. However, some community programs such as day
reporting, home incarceration, and work release programs have proved to be
somehow effective since offenders who completed them have indicated lower rates
of relapse into crime than the ones released from prisons (Marion, 2002).
Development, outcome of interest,
analyzing success
Community corrections have evolved over
the years since the reform era in the mid-1800s to the war on crime era that
resulted in overcrowding in prisons in the 1990s. Other eras in between
include; the rehabilitation era during the 1900s, and the reintegration era in
the 1960s. During President Nixon’s war on crime era, the public had lost faith
in correctional programmes claiming they could not rehabilitate criminals. Laws
were made in various states to eliminate the use of parole and probation (Westhuizen, 2003). Nevertheless, the current laws
allow for these community corrections to take place, and the society has
learned to accept them, despite the lack of tremendous success. Each state has
its own department of corrections that is tasked with customizing community
correction programs. For instance, the state of Iowa includes presentence
investigations and pretrial services as part of their correctional programs ("Iowa Department of Corrections", 2018). The
rates of recidivism are gradually declining across all states, and this could
partly be attributed to community correction programs ("Reducing
Recidivism", 2014).
The main outcome of interest when
analyzing community corrections should be the safety of the community rather
than costs. Life is priceless. Community corrections should be adjusted to
include more education programs that rehabilitate offenders and train them to
be more useful in the society. Therefore, the success of a community-based
program should be analyzed by the rate of reduction of recidivism among
ex-offenders (Paulson, 2013).
Technical Violations and Criminal Violations
Technical violations occur when an
offender fails to uphold certain conditions of their probation or parole that a
judge ordered. Such a violation is not considered as a criminal offense and
usually doesn’t result in the arrest of the offender. Technical violations
include; Testing positive for a drug, missing a curfew, contacting a victim, or
failure to attend a scheduled office visit ("Recidivism
In Connecticut", 2001). Criminal violations include such charges as
reckless driving and driving under the influence and may require the offender
to appear before the court. Both violations call for dire consequences to
reduce the risk of recidivism. These violations are a drawback when analyzing
the success of community corrections programs, and therefore strategies to
thwart them should be put in place
Recommendations
Recent statistics indicate that
community-based programs have been instrumental in rehabilitating offenders so
that they may not backslide into criminal activities. However, what’s unclear
is whether they don’t relapse due to the weight of their initial crime (less
serious offenses) causing them to stay away from further criminal activities.
There is also a research gap when trying to establish whether lower recidivism
rates in ‘clients’ of community-based programs will prevail in the long run.
Developing different or new strategies that include education programs for
offenders could thwart the idea that community-based corrections are not better
than prisons. Community correctional programs ought to be interdisciplinary and
multisectoral to offer holistic and comprehensive services to culprits. The
government (starting from the president) must be concerned with the expenses
associated with thwarting crime and rehabilitating offenders. The supreme court
and the lawmakers should see into new strategies applied to the correctional
programs, and the private sector might need to chip to have a safer community.
References
Community
Corrections | National Institute of Justice. (2018). National
Institute of Justice. Retrieved 22 February 2018, from
https://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/community/Pages/welcome.aspx
Iowa Department
of Corrections. (2018). Doc.iowa.gov. Retrieved 22 February 2018,
from https://doc.iowa.gov/about-us/about-community-based-corrections
Marion, N. (2002).
Effectiveness of Community based Correctional Programs: A Case Study. The
Prison Journal, 82(4), 478-497.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0032885502238682
Mass
Incarceration. (2017). Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved 22
February 2018, from https://eji.org/mass-incarceration
Paulson, P.
(2013). The Role of Community Based Programs in Reducing Recidivism in
ExOffenders. Sophia.stkate.edu. Retrieved 22 February 2018, from
https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1249&context=msw_papers
Recidivism In
Connecticut. (2001). Cga.ct.gov. Retrieved 22 February 2018,
from https://www.cga.ct.gov/pri/archives/2001ricreportappenA.htm
Reducing
Recidivism. (2014). Csgjusticecenter.org. Retrieved 22 February
2018, from
https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ReducingRecidivism_StatesDeliverResults.pdf
Westhuizen, V.
(2003). Community Corrections. Repository.up.ac.za. Retrieved 22
February 2018, from https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/26643/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3