NCJ Number
110530
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 67 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall-Winter 1987) Pages: 39-48
Date Published
1987
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The author argues that large-scale criminal justice reform has been based on faulty assumptions and discusses the influence of these events on the future of criminal justice.
Abstract
Three reform experiences that influenced the author's vision of the future of criminal justice, as discussed, are the Minnesota Community Corrections Act, the Minnesota Restitution Center, and development of a State corrections master plan. Key assumptions were that more appropriate use would be made of State facilities if counties had additional State funding for local corrections programs, that a community-based facility would reduce the use of incarceration, and that the need for additional facilities would decrease. Each had the opposite effects of those intended. Jurisdictional fragmentation, increased privatization of criminal justice programs, victim roles and services, and the use of incarceration are described as areas needing reform. The author looks at changes likely to occur in the Canadian justice system in the next 25 years, such as (1) more structured and confined decisionmaking discretion, (2) a shift toward centralizing correctional services, (3) increased use of private agency service provider arrangments, and (4) more attention to the roles of victims as initiators of the criminal justice process and as witnesses. He foresees greater use of prisons for violent and repetitive offenders and establishment of prison disease control units with special prisons for persons testing positive for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). 8 references.