NCJ Number
121218
Date Published
1990
Length
37 pages
Annotation
After assessing the claims of some characteristics commonly ascribed to "community corrections," this chapter develops the thesis that community structure is comprised largely of interacting organizational forces and that the location of community correctional programs among those organizational forces will shape the internal nature of the correctional program.
Abstract
The chapter first explains why community corrections has not been empirically confirmed to have the characteristics commonly attributed to it. These characteristics are innovativeness, service provision that reduces crime, a changed relationship between the offender and the community, the development of a local constituency for corrections, no institutions, sanction value, and greater diversity in correctional options. A discussion of the types of community-correctional linkage notes that communities are fields of interaction in which a number of social systems intersect, producing a variety of forms and results. Three types of community corrections interactional fields are defined: community-run, community-placed, and community-based. The interactional field of "community-run" correctional programs is relatively circumscribed, free of external directives but also lacking statewide sources of financial support and technical expertise. Although relatively autonomous, on a formal level, from local political decisions and the relative wealth of any particular county, "community-placed" correctional programs have no direct linkages with local service agencies or local criminal justice agencies. "Community-based" programs enjoy the benefits but also operate under the constraints of their connections to both local and nonlocal policymaking and resource centers. Discussion questions.