Handling the Dilemma over Community vs Institutional Corrections Essay Example for Free

Handling the Dilemma over Community vs institutional department of corrections EssayIt is the first day of break and Jimmy wants to have a good prison term with his friends. Long story short, Jimmy decided to drive home drunk and crashed into an opposite car. The driver of the another(prenominal) car passed away.What kind of penalisation should Jimmy receive? It seems fair for him to spend time in prison. Should he see probation after the jail time? How much? This scenario attends introduce the plight we have today as a society ab erupt institutional vs. lodge department of department of department of corrections. Punishment for crime has eer been an issue for debate. With the harvest of the Ameri flock colonies, the colonists needed a remains of punishment for lawbreakers. Many methods developed in Europe meant to work shame to those offenders were adopted. Around this time, the world saw a change in punishment ideology nigh began to stress that humans ar non perfe ct and make mistakes. Thus, there should be more(prenominal) unsnarl as well as punish. In 1682, William Penn made a push for change.He limited the stopping point penalty to cases of murder only and called for fines and imprisonment for most offenses. This is widely considered the beginnings of the prison system in the U.S. He in like manner helped start the creation of jails, like the High Street Jail. The first federal prisons were established in 1891. Before this date, prisons were organized by states and territories. The establishment of news and probation, or community corrections, began in the 1870s. There has al ways been and most likely always will be a huge social dilemma on what types and to what period punishment should be laid out. Both institutional and community corrections have their pros and cons. angiotensin converting enzyme thing is for certain, however, that we do need a mixture of both(prenominal). The current prison system has a descend of advantages. I ncarceration keeps criminals away from the public theoretically make the public safer. Imprisonment also punishes the convicted criminal by taking away, in a sense, their life at least for a short period.This type of punishment should have the effect of deterring the offender from repeat crimes as well as others from committing crimes. Current prison systems be meant to be rehabilitative. Structure and discipline is pictured by the prisons so as to educate and provide therapy for inmates. With the good also comes the bad. Housing a large population of criminals together can lead to networking and an anti-social encouragement to continue crime. in all likelihood the biggest knock on imprisonment is that there is a huge cost associated with housing an inmate. The public and observant citizens essentially pay for the living accommodations of a criminal. The financial toll hits those families directly associated with the criminal. It is harder for a family to get by if an income is removed. If a family ends up needing government aid, the public is again paying for that. It can also be express that prisons lack the necessary resources to properly rehabilitate and to address the issues of how they got to prison.One expire disadvantage is that e truly captive is treated the same. A murderer would be treated the same as a thief. This may not necessarily be fair. Community- run aground corrections, on the other hand, also have a number of advantages. It is usually express that community corrections atomic number 18 practical and less expensive alternatives to imprisonment. Keeping an offender convicted of a peanut crime in the community and out of a jail filled with hardened criminals would theoretically do a better occupation at rehabilitating the person and keep them functioning socially. Community corrections chiefly offer the solution to the tendency of inmates to learn anti-social behaviors. Families will largely stay intact. Supervision and restrict ions can help the person learn to be a more highly functioning member of society. Training programs and avocation bug outment work along these same lines. Community corrections may also have shun outcomes. For one, criminals will still be walking the streets.If an offender is set to live in a midway house, the community around the house could become undesirable. Nearby residents may feel threatened. Community corrections are not totally free either. Systems like halfway houses do cost money, although the overall cost of community corrections is appealing in comparison to institutional corrections. Many believe that prisonization is tantamount to socialization into a criminal culture. Therefore, being in a prison is thought equivalent to being in a school for crime (Tittle, 263). look into has shown that inmates will often grow loyalty each other and can develop a hostility towards prison officials. The society in a prison is largely based on putting value in things not as valuab le otherwise. The overall effect is not one conducive to rehabilitation into society. Some do say, however, that attitudes and behaviors such as this become less conspicuous as the time nears for return to the outside (Tittle, 264) This insight can show how many might plainly adapt to prison culture and can readjust once freed. Still, the risk of anti-socialization is there.The argument can be made that prisons are not the greatest device for rehabilitation hardly that community corrections are not currently adequate. A push for improvements is being made. Prohibitive costs of constructing and operating jails make it insufferable to get out of this corrections crisis even if the public wants toughness on crime (Rosenthal, 1). Policymakers are making a push towards more effective transition and community supervision. One large problem with this ever-changing corrections climate, is that rehabilitation is being overshadowed by protection of the public and promotion of justice (Ro senthal, 1). One last important point to make about a need for more effective community corrections is that there is an increase in the number of drug and alcohol abusers and prisons are not the best place for these offenders.Innovations have been made in community corrections such as intensive supervision probation/parole (ISP), home confinement with or without electronic monitoring, and residential options in community corrections. It is encouraging to see developments save the system in general is ineffective.Unlike some countries, we have no national probation serving to provide service uniformly across all parts of the country (Burrell, xv). There are federal, state, county, and even municipal train providers. It is hard to be efficient and effective with such a non-standardized system. A Canadian study showed that well-designed and well-implemented punitive treatment programs can produce significant reduction in recidivism (Burrell, xvii). The overarching factor in the pu nitory dilemma is that we should attempt to do what is best for society. Justice does need to be served and prisons are a necessary evil, but not always best at rehabilitation.Without proper rehabilitation, we will see repeat offenders. Community corrections offer better opportunities at re-entry but, of course, this is not always feasible or fair. An often overlooked office of this dilemma is the families. Not only will the criminal be a lost cause if rehabilitation is a failure but often the families may fall into a state of failure as well. A study shows that two thirds of family members of incarcerated persons see substantial financial decline, general health decline, and damage to relationships with children and other family members (Arditti, 199-200). This certainly is not beneficial for society. In my opinion, there is a trend to be seen in this correctional dilemma. This trend appears to be that the main issue is a lack of effectiveness in rehabilitation. It is also very cl ear that institutional corrections is not usually conducive to widespread rehabilitation.This lends the idea that community corrections and the community in general provide the real hope. We also now know that the community system is fragmented and decentralized and needs improvement. This is not to say that we need to completely stray away from prisons. Surely, that is out of the question. It is a necessary evil. To better society as a whole, community corrections need to be improved. I believe that we should move towards a system where only the most severe of offenders see accredited hard jail time. Further, a focus and monetary support should be put towards a structured community corrections system that is more apt at rehabilitating offenders. This is no small task. My opinions can be expounded upon as such For all wild offenders and those committing crimes with wide-ranging effects should see times behind debar without question.Data shows that there are large numbers of non violent offenders behind bars. Being that it is extremely pricy to house a prisoner it would be beneficial to attempt to cut down on non violent offenders behind bars. The push would then be to turn to more social and community based ways of punishment. It would seem that this would be more conducive of rehabilitation. This group of offenders having committed non violent crimes may have more hope of becoming productive members of society once again. There is a certain level of credence to be had. We must understand that there will always be criminals and some will neer be fixed. Further, any system will never work perfectly. In my opinion, though, it seems there needs to a slight shift in momentum towards community corrections for economic, societal, and rehabilitative reasons.Works CitedArditti, Joyce A., Jennifer Lambert-Shute, and Karen Joest. Saturday Morning at the Jail Implications of Incarceration for Families and Children. Family Relations 52.3 (2003) 195-204. JSTOR. Web. 26 Nov. 2012.This scholarly bind was originally published in the journal, Family Relations. This article is meant to explore the implications of criminal sanction policies on the families of felony offenders. More specifically, the article focused on the social, health, and economic characteristics of parents and children to these offenders under incarceration. I found the article to be interesting and thorough overall, but much of it was more than what I neededfor the purposes of this paper. Still, I found the article to be helpful in my research and proved to be useful for anecdotes. As such, this source was used mainly for supplemental information. Burrell, William D. Community Corrections Management. Civic Research Institute (n.d.) n. pag. JSTOR. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. This article is part of the Civic Research Institute.The article is intent on discussing the Community-Based Corrections System in general. The author takes the point of view that it is a decentralized and fragmente d system. The article that discusses probation and parole along with developments in these areas. Finally, it explores the future of the system. I found the article to be helpful to my understanding of the community corrections system and to see where it might be heading. I used this article mainly for informational purposes and general understanding. Inciardi, James A. Criminal Justice. 8th ed. Orlando Academic, 1984. Print. This source is the textbook for our Introduction to Criminal Justice course. It is meant to provide an overview of the structure, processes, and problems of the criminal justice system in the United States.The book provides lots of basic and some in reason information and accompanying support, data, and analysis. I find the book to be helpful and capable ox offering explanations easy to comprehend. I have used this book mainly as a run away and a source for general information on the topic and not for more in depth purposes. Rosenthal, C. S. Opportunities i n Community Corrections. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1989. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. . This article published in the National Criminal Justice Reference Service is focused on why there would be community based corrections, what they are, how effective they have been, and what is the future looking like. alike to another article I have cited, this scholarly journal article does a good job of painting the big picture of community corrections. I particularly liked how this article was thorough in starting off with the basics and going into developments and then finally into some analysis.This proved to be a helpful article in the formation of my opinion. Tittle, Charles R. Institutional Living and Rehabilitation. Journal of Health Social air 13 (1972) 263-73. Web. 26 Nov. 2012. This source is an article published in the Journal of Health and Social doings on the topic of Institutional Corrections. The author of this article seeks to provide information and research on the extent to which incarceration is or can be rehabilitative. He finds and explains three characteristics thought to have anti-rehabilitative consequences. I found this journal article to be helpful at providing a detailed analysis of institutional corrections, both the presumed advantages and disadvantages. I used this mainly for more in depth conclusion drawing.