NCJ Number
72261
Journal
Social Defence Volume: 14 Issue: 55 Dated: (January 1980) Pages: 14-25
Date Published
1979
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines the criminal justice sytem in India and delineates those areas in which citizens can make a contribution to the prevention and detection of crime, as well as to offender reformation and rehabilitation.
Abstract
Justifications for community involvement supplementing official efforts to reform and rehabilitate offenders are threefold: (1) factors in the community itself, including economic inequalities and deprivations, exploitations, the breakdown of the family, and the failure of social institutions, have contributed to the emergence of crime; (2) correctional programs cannot be implemented without community support, approval, and understanding; (3) offenders must ultimately return to the community, which must be systematically prepared to receive them. Furthermore, community participation antedates formal law enforcement institutions, since social control was originally maintained by a group through unwritten customs and traditions that defined the norms of conformity for all its members. The alarming increase in both crime and recidivism rates is attributable to the woeful lack of preventive, curative, and rehabilitative programs and services in the community. The virtual absence of aftercare services for released offenders is another serious drawback to the effectiveness of crime prevention efforts. Community organization workers must begin concerted action to change people's attitudes toward prisoners. As mediators, spokesmen, and resource persons, community-based social workers should aim to assuage society's feelings of vengeance toward wrongdoers and encourage acceptance and sympathy for offenders who have served prison terms. The community and the offender need to recognize a sense of belonging to the same group in all respects but law violation, so that offenders can begin to desire and achieve status with that group. Vocational rehabilitation efforts should overlap prison and release, providing a continuum through which offenders reemerge as useful members of society. Public apathy and ignorance are the greatest drawbacks to the achievement of such goals. Social workers must strive to enlist individual volunteers in aftercare and probation projects and mold public opinion through public meetings, group discussions, and film shows. In developing countries, these tasks are facilitated by the still extant traditional bodies, such as head-man courts and tribal elders, that need to be reencouraged and revitalized. Finally, community efforts are needed for children's recreation and education programs to serve long-range crime prevention goals. Appended are 19 references.