NCJ Number
173802
Date Published
1996
Length
499 pages
Annotation
Using a format of alphabetical penological terms, this revised and expanded version of the initial 1979 edition provides statistical and narrative profiles of each State's correctional system and the Federal correctional system in the mid-1990s; Trends in various areas of penology are also described, and correctional expenditure data are presented.
Abstract
When the initial edition was written in 1979, penologists were predicting that the era of the large fortress prison was nearing an end, and community corrections would soon replace long-term incarceration for all but the most violent, dangerous, and asocial inmates. Small new prisons would be constructed to be architecturally compatible with the treatment ideology that was so much in vogue at that time. This revised and expanded version of the "Dictionary of American Penology" was written in the mid- 1990s, and it notes that it is a time of pessimism in which few people believe that rehabilitation can occur in adult prisons, although there is still faith in rehabilitation in juvenile institutions. It is a time of prison overcrowding and a commitment to build even more prisons. Politicians are willing to cut back funding for education, research on medicine, and other public services to finance the prison-building boom. Entries in the previous edition that dealt with "treatment" programs in prisons have been largely dropped, because many of these programs are no longer used. New entries were added to focus on newer concepts, terminologies, methods, and philosophies. Individual entries on State prison systems and the components of the Federal prison system are snapshots in time with brief descriptions of the administrative structure, number of facilities, number of inmates, level of expenditures, and incarceration rates of the jurisdictions. The author advises that the system descriptions may be used to compare one system to another at a moment in time in the mid-1990s. Appendixes provide a selected list of prison- reform organizations, prison system addresses, and selected statistical tables from the U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics. A 237-item bibliography and a subject index