NCJ Number
77498
Journal
Journal of the Pennsylvania Association on Probation Parole and Correction Volume: 31 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1975) Pages: 29-34
Date Published
1975
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Practice trends in corrections are identified, and their implications for graduate professional education curriculums are discussed.
Abstract
In the past decade, there has been increased awareness that the various criminal justice agencies and personnel are part of an interrelated network. Within prisons, there has been a comparable growth of awareness that the prison is a multifaceted system, with all categories of personnel being interdependent. The humanization of prison systems and the opportunity for inmates to improve their ability to participate in normative society upon release are focal points of the correctional system. All State correctional systems have established programs in some or all of the following areas: education, vocational guidance and training, prison industries and other work activities, recreation and sports, creative arts, and religion. Treatment programs have expanded to include a variety of behavioral specialists who act as caseworkers, individual psychotherapists, group therapists, and as marriage and family therapists at the prerelease stage. Another major trend in corrections is the use of alternatives to incarceration, usually in the form of community programs geared to characteristics and needs of offenders. In the context of these correctional trends, a graduate or professional school curriculum with a corrections orientation might include a practice area (individual psychotherapy, group therapies, marital counseling, family therapy, and community organization), human growth and development (psychology and sociology of corrections), administration (supervision and staff development, organizational development, theory and practice of agency administration, serving as a change agent, the political process as it affects corrections, and public relations), and forensics (law, psychiatry, and the criminal justice system). In all of these areas, development of self-awareness, conscious use of the professional self, and professional ethics and values should be fostered. Eleven references are cited.