NCJ Number
102939
Date Published
1985
Length
243 pages
Annotation
Personal experience as a corrections official combines with data and views from research literature to form the basis of an analysis of the nature of contemporary corrections, the nature and sources of its problems, and needed changes.
Abstract
The justice and correctional system fails in its main stated purpose: to protect the public and rehabilitate the criminal. Sentencing is often unfair, and inmates' individual needs for education or other services are often unmet. Substantial improvement in corrections will remain impossible as long as society remains uncertain about its goal for corrections. Prison administration is generally geared toward custody rather than treatment, although efforts to use effective treatment are increasing. Prisoners generally have major problems with their self-image, and the potential for violence in prisons is real. However, the repressive and regimented nature of prisons ensures boredom, idleness, and eventually trouble. Group counseling, higher education, and other programs are improving inmate services, but much remains to be done. Correctional education needs to differ from the traditional public school education to deal with the inmate's total needs. Other changes needed are the recognition that mandatory sentences are ineffective, the repeal of laws regarding victimless crimes, the expansion of community alternatives to incarceration, and individual treatment of offenders. Figures, case examples, and chapter notes.