NCJ Number
239159
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2012 Pages: 77-95
Date Published
February 2012
Length
19 pages
Annotation
The authors of this article discuss the failure of prisons and incentive-based legislation to transform correctional institutions into accountable prisons.
Abstract
Despite being used on a massive scale and consuming huge amounts of the public treasury, prisons have largely failed to reduce offender recidivism. This failure persists both because of archaic beliefs that prisons cannot affect future behavior and because nobody is held accountable for inmate reoffending. Building on lessons from the field of policing, the authors propose a new era of accountability in correctionsan era in which prison wardens and other correctional officials are mandated to reduce inmate recidivism and are rewarded for doing so. Through a restructuring of incentives, the aim is to create in corrections a sustained interest in making offenders less likely to commit new crimes. More broadly, this approach is intended to transform correctional institutions into "accountable prisons" where concern over offenders' future community conduct rivals concern over their daily institutional conduct. (Published Abstract)