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doi: 10.1177/000271626938100103pmid: N/A
Man has never been able to develop a completely rational and satisfactory set of alternatives for dealing with convicted violators of the criminal law. The more primitive forms of criminal sanctions were based primarily on ideas of revenge and retribution. Execution, physical torture, and public degradation were the most common methods in use until near the close of the eighteenth century. Imprisonment as the principal method did not come into general use until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Concepts of retributive punishment have persisted, but superimposed upon them were other purposes, such as deterrence, public protection, and rehabilitation. The trend in Western civilization for the past 150 years has been steadily in the direction of more and more commitment to rehabilitation and resocialization of offenders. Implementation of these ideas has been extremely slow and hampered by lack of financial support and the excessive frag mentation of the public agencies responsible. The movement is now away from the excessive use of imprisonment and more and more toward the development of community-based pro grams making use of the social sciences. The correctional field is on the threshold of revolutionary changes which will take place gradually, tested by scientific methods.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100104pmid: N/A
The prison is viewed as an element in the system of justice that operates under constraints imposed by the broader soci ety. Many of the contradictions observed in the prison's goals and in its achievement strategies have their counterpart in community disorganization. Accordingly, any major im provement in the prison's efficiency will probably require a fundamental overhaul of both the system of justice and the community's normative structure. Such overhaul encounters strong resistance from the community and the agencies of justice. Most current efforts at prison reform are therefore regarded as stopgap measures.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100105pmid: N/A
Contemporary programs of delinquency-control can be traced to the enterprising reforms of the child-savers who, at the end of the nineteenth century, helped to create special judicial and correctional institutions for the labeling, processing, and management of "troublesome" youth. Child- saving was a conservative and romantic movement, designed to impose sanctions on conduct unbecoming youth and to dis qualify youth from enjoying adult privileges. The child- savers were prohibitionists, in a general sense, who believed in close supervision of adolescents' recreation and leisure. The movement brought attention to, and thus "invented," new categories of youthful misbehavior which had been previously unappreciated or had been dealt with on an informal basis. Child-saving was heavily influenced by middle-class women who extended their housewifely roles into public service and emphasized the dependence of the social order on the proper socialization of children. This analysis of the child-savers offers an opportunity to examine more general issues in cor rectional research: What are the dynamics of the popular and legislative drive to bring "undesirable" behavior within the ambit of the criminal law? What problems are caused by "agency-determined" research? What are the practical and policy implications of research on politically sensitive institutions?
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100106pmid: N/A
Norman House in London is the prototype of the halfway house movement, which works for the resettle ment of homeless offenders. Norman House originated in its founder's visits to a prison where he realized that homelessness was frequently a consequence of repeated imprisonment, and recidivism itself a disqualification for social help on discharge. What the inadequate recidivist was asking for was support and direction so that he could be a useful citizen. What he received, in fact, was advice and admonition and a couple of nights in a common lodginghouse, which amounted to a return ticket to prison. Norman House was started in 1954 as a small family home for twelve adult recidivists who wanted something better than the advice to go straight and the lodg inghouse where they were expected to start the journey. Nor man House was designed as a family home where the isolated offender could feel that he belonged. "Going straight" then began to have purpose because it was related to people who cared for him. What happened to him was a matter for concern to someone. This was the simple beginning of what is now developing into a national service. It is not without influence on developments in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100107pmid: N/A
Based on the assumption that the same treat ment program which is beneficial to some types of offenders may be detrimental to other types, a series of experimental programs for delinquents have developed around a theory of the differential use of program elements. The question asked has been: What kinds of treatment programs conducted by what kinds of workers in what kinds of settings are best for what kinds of youthful offenders? In approaching these in vestigations, several classification schemata—categorizing of fenders, treaters, environments, and treatment methods—have been developed. Attempts have then been made to study the "matching" of workers, settings, and methods with types of delinquents. These studies have produced a number of find ings : Offenders can be reliably classified in treatment-relevant ways. A large proportion of youthful offenders can be suc cessfully treated in community-based programs rather than institutions; however, incarceration leads to higher success rates with one type of delinquent. Grouping of offenders into homogeneous living units by subtype leads to a significant decrease in institution-management problems. Offenders who are well matched with their treaters have much higher success rates than those who are not well matched. Impact of these studies on correctional programs in California is great, both at state and county levels. Interest in these concepts has led to the establishment of the Center for Training in Differential Treatment.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100108pmid: N/A
Approximately eight years ago, following a series of violent and sensational youth crimes, a state agency was given the responsibility to launch an innovative program for troubled adolescents. The manner in which the administra tion viewed its new mandate, the youth-care concepts upon which the programs were based, and the practical, daily opera tional problems experienced in implementing techniques and approaches which departed from tradition are discussed in this article.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100109pmid: N/A
Prisons, reformatories, and training schools have been part of Western culture for about two centuries. In the main, they now reflect an inefficient, ineffective, and obsolete social instrument—the total institution. The emerging model for dealing with offenders will feature many shades of com munity-based placement for both juveniles and adults. Total institutions segregated from the community may be necessary for a small percentage of dangerous people, housing a much smaller proportion of the total offender population than that which is now kept under constant lock and key. In excess of 70 per cent of all offenders can be placed immediately in community-based correctional activities. Another 15 per cent may need short-term, community-oriented confinement. Pro grams for the remaining 15 per cent requiring longer-term restraint should, nevertheless, be aimed at normal community life. Movement in this direction will require major diversi fication and strengthening of probation and parole and inte gration of correctional efforts with general community rehabili tative activities. As a prerequisite to those changes, there is a need for significant education of political leaders, judges, public-interest groups, and public-information media concern ing the potential of community-based corrections.
doi: 10.1177/000271626938100110pmid: N/A
The work of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice brought into sharp focus problems arising from the fragmented character of the criminal-justice system in the United States. State and local study groups which became involved in the development of plans for compreshensive criminal-justice systems must take into account recent developments in correctional services. The emergence of community-treatment centers, work-release, and furlough programs provides new opportunities to rein force the process of reintegrating the offender into the com munity. As the new programs have been introduced and corrections has broadened its base in the community, the traditional jurisdictional lines between probation, institutional services, and parole have become blurred. This poses an interesting range of organizational problems which will give impetus to a realignment of correctional programs. Reports of two studies—one in New York and one in New Jersey— tend to highlight some of the issues involved and suggest directions which might be explored by state crime commissions in other jurisdictions.
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