NCJ Number
84044
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Representatives from a variety of public interest, professional, and religious groups discuss the advantages of private sector administration of community-based correctional services, particularly the enhanced citizen input into correctional policymaking.
Abstract
Private administration creates independence from bureaucratic authority, red tape, and politics and greater chances of gaining citizen acceptance. Privately administered corrections relies on community funds, which are used to press for legislative and system reforms. Traditional corrections accepts community contributions in the form of direct services only and allows citizen groups no chance to affect policy. The corrections system itself has absorbed the idea of alternative programming, leaving less room and funding for private involvement. There should be a moratorium on all prison construction to give community corrections and other alternatives a chance to succeed. The audience comments on the involvement of private colleges and volunteers in the prison system, prison chaplains' qualifications and role, criminal justice coordinating councils as decisionmaking bodies where lay input can be increased, and corrections officers' and administrators' attitudes toward volunteers.