NCJ Number
88323
Date Published
1982
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The goals of corrections are incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, social reintegration, and retribution, with restitution also receiving recent emphasis.
Abstract
A period of secure confinement is the most common incapacitation strategy, with revocation of a professional or vocational license also being a form of incapacitation. Arguments associated with incapacitation center on who needs how much incapacitation, for what purposes, and based on what legal and diagnostic criteria. The extreme use of retribution is in conflict with the aims of rehabilitation and reintegration goals. Retribution serves the goal of behavior modification only when it is used in proper measure to structure painful consequences for destructive behavior. Deterrence may also inhibit treatment goals. Deterrence assumes that society can frighten the offender and potential offender into lawful behavior. This view presumes that behavior is rationally chosen based upon the consequences likely to result. Further, it presumes that law enforcement and judicial processes are highly effective in detecting and convicting offenders. The goals of rehabilitation and social reintegration should produce a relatively compatible continuum of services that, when properly managed, will link the correctional institutions and the community-based alternatives in a coordinated network. In practice, most prisons are unable to deliver the quantity and quality of preparatory services required for successful reintegration, and the network of community alternatives is not well developed. Restitution programs can easily be incorporated into community diversion in support of rehabilitation and reintegration, allowing the offender to make amends to the victim or the community through earnings or free labor.