NCJ Number
80087
Date Published
1976
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This report highlights the speeches and discussions of the First National Conference on Alternatives to Incarceration in September 1975, examines issues which emerged from the meeting, and suggests some directions for church and community groups.
Abstract
An outline of the conference's 3-day program is followed by a description of participants and summaries of the major speeches. Approximately 1,600 persons from 43 States attended the meeting, including correctional personnel, criminologists, ex-offenders, lawyers, activist ministers, legislative aides, and community organizers. Diversion programs, the indiscriminate incarceration of juvenile offenders, and the failure of the present prison system were among the topics addressed. The report notes that tension between those working for reform within the criminal justice system and those who took a more radical point of view surfaced throughout the conference. A speech from author Jessica Mitford which advocated radical reforms closed the meeting. A review of the conference's principal themes notes that all participants agreed that the prison system was a failure. The philosophic schizophrenia which allows the notions of punishment and rehabilitation to exist side by side was an underlying concern, and several speakers openly attacked the social validity of the rehabilitation theory. Specific alternatives discussed were the Minnesota Restitution Center and Massachusetts' program to place all juvenile offenders in community-based facilities. Logistical problems and criticisms that race and class were not seriously considered by the conference are also described. Based on the conference experience, suggestions for voluntary agencies interested in changing the criminal justice and correctional systems are presented. Statements from minority participants and the prisoner and ex-prisoner caucus express their particular concerns. Finally, the report includes a paper written in 1974 for the National Task Force on Higher Education and Criminal Justice which identifies alternatives to prison, approaches offering respites from incarceration, and early release programs. Resource organizations and all persons who participated in the conference are listed.