The Future of Corrections

1
Chapter 14

• The Futureof Corrections

2
The Future of Corrections

• Collateral Effects of Imprisonment
• Politics of Corrections and the Media
• The War on Drugs
• The Costs of Current Policies
• Changes in the Justice System
• New Technologies
• New Models of the Correctional Mission

3
Collateral Costs of Imprisonment

• 400 increase in imprisonment since 1980
• Harm to families and communities
• Disenfranchisement
• Risk of disease
• Crime and prison rates largely unrelated
• 25 decline in violent crime
• Increasing recidivism and severity of crime

4
Media

• Agenda Setting Directs concern to particular
  issues, opinions on topic set by personal factors
• Also creates images that are widely accepted
• Corrections issues manipulated for political and
  monetary gains by politicians, victims groups,
  CO unions, and prison-industrial complex
• Simple, dramatic, unusual stories preferred
• Correctional successes avoid publicity

5
Media (continued)

• 1990-1998, homicide rates dropped 50 but media
  news coverage increased 400
• Reporters poorly informed about corrections
• Correctional officials reluctant to deal with
  media, give impression of secrecy

6
War on Drugs

• Alcohol the most criminogenic drug
• 453,000 imprisoned for drugs at annual cost of 5
  billion
• 58 have no violent history
• One in three female inmates is a drug offender
• Disproportionate minority confinement largely due
  to severe drug penalties

7
Drugs (continued)

• Violent offenders receiving early parole to
  create space for drug offenders with mandatory
  sentences
• Punishment ineffective with compulsive behaviors
  such as drug addiction
• Allocation of treatment resources very uneven,
  biased

8
Costs of Current Policies

• 690 of every 100,000 citizens incarcerated
• 7 of all state resources committed to prisons
• Average annual cost for minimum security male
  prisoner is 25,000
• Reintegration programs cut to pay for operating
  costs of new prisons
• Harshness linked to recidivism

9
System Changes

• Courts greatly have broadened police powers in
  last 20 years
• Prosecutors discretion increasing, judicial
  discretion declining
• Increased victims rights can facilitate
  harshness or reintegration
• Victim Impact Statements common
• Mediation used in a few areas

10
New Technologies

• Computerized information sharing between
  agencies, jurisdictions
• Biometrics Recognition via fingerprints,
  voiceprints, or eye, hand, face shape
• Smart cards Hold biometrics, medial, legal,
  other data
• Victim updates on case, offender status
  computerized

11
Technologies (continued)

• Online medical care, education, training
• Defense equipment used in corrections
• Ground penetrating radar, puncture resistant
  clothes, heartbeat sensors
• DNA and similar forms of evidence
• Better, cheaper offender tracking, record
  storage/transfer greater efficiency

12
The Correctional Mission

• Community corrections the main area for major
  changes
• Fears of discrimination and financial costs
  increasingly suggest need for new approaches
• Growing desire to give communities more autonomy
  in responding to crime

13
Restorative Justice

• Three simultaneous goals
• Assist victim
• Prevent future crime
• Reintegrate offender
• Acknowledges failure of punishment to alter
  behavior
• Focuses on assuring a better future for all

14
Community Justice

• Integrates corrections with area C.J agencies on
  formal and informal bases
• Also includes educational, welfare, health,
  housing, transportation etc, systems
• Broken Windows Approach Potentially criminogenic
  situations are referred to appropriate agency
  BEFORE they get worse
• Most efforts experimental, places power mainly in
  hands of line practitioners
• Resisted by hierarchical traditions of
  corrections/C.J.

15
Accreditation

• American Correctional Association (ACA)
• Sets standards that guide the policies and
  practices of many agencies
• Dozens of manuals set all sorts of standards for
  all types of agencies
• These standards often referred to by courts
  evaluating conditions and practices
• Accreditation is not a formal defense