NCJ Number
185319
Journal
Corrections Management Quarterly Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Dated: Fall 2000 Pages: 1-9
Date Published
2000
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article examines the rationale underlying Washington State's move toward the systematic inclusion of the community in the development of correctional policy.
Abstract
Correctional policy in Washington State has been driven by sentencing guidelines that continue to emphasize prison as opposed to the community as a place to sanction offenders. Currently, however, the writings of both scholars and corrections practitioners argue for the return to the community of community corrections and the greater clarification of objectives that reflect citizen concerns for public safety and policy concerns that focus on reintegration of offenders into the community, with a renewed emphasis on treatment, accountability, and the reduction of nonviolent offenders being sentenced to prison. The Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) is working more closely with communities across the State to develop correctional policies that will be acceptable to those communities, help keep low-risk offenders out of prison, and make more effective use of limited departmental resources. There is an emerging body of literature in the areas of social capital, citizen attitudes toward punishment, and community justice that provides support for the DOC's latest initiatives. Recent research suggests that the extent to which "social capital," "collective efficacy," or "social altruism" exists in a community is directly related to effective service provision and lower crime rates. Social capital pertains to the network of volunteer and service agencies that can exist in a community and generate a climate that fosters norms of civic engagement, social trust, and provide the momentum that underlies civic action. The importance of social capital to the DOC relates most directly to the agency's plans to "build bridges" between the department and the State's varied communities. These efforts take different forms in regions with differing levels of social capital. The DOC is focusing on three key dimensions of change in corrections policy development: the need for decentralization, the nature of citizen sentiments regarding how offenders should be dealt with in the community, and the mechanisms to be used for the inclusion of stakeholders in the planning and decision making process. The goals of these dimensions and how they are being implemented by the DOC are discussed in the latter part of this article. 46 references