Community Corrections and Re-entry - Article Example

The article identifies the two crucial labels of community corrections as parole and probation. As one reads through the article, he, or she gets to know that parole originated in Europe while probation originated in America in the mid-19th century. However, these community-based sanctions became assimilated in the U.S. criminal justice system, in the early 20th century, thanks to the medical model in correctional discourse. Despite all the criticisms, parole and probation became rooted in the country’s correctional system, and by the end of the 20th century, their growth was immeasurable.

The failure of the rehabilitation concept did not go unnoticed because it was followed by the introduction of the new penal policy. This penal policy contributed to low performance of community corrections thus, an increase in prison capacity ant the need to reinvent community corrections. Finally, the authors of the article took a look at the future of community corrections and the prison influence with regards to serving all aspects of community needs and their relationship with prison institutions.

Questions 1. What is the relationship between prisons and community corrections and how does this relationship influence community corrections? 2. . However, no recognizable attempts are being made to reduce prison populations; or rather decarceration is still virgin territory. This article focuses on ways in which prison population in California can be reduced. As such, it concentrates on research on the causes of increased imprisonment during the last 30 years, and recent discussions of and efforts to reduce imprisonment in other states.

There was a time when California’s prison population reduced. This was in the last two years of governor Reagan’s first term, and the first two years of his second term(1968-1972). During this time, the rate of imprisonment in the rest the U.S. increased while that of California dropped. The authors of the article came up with contemporary explanations of the imprisonment reduction which included; the Reagan factor, and multiple factors (probation subsidies and changes in parole procedures).

To explain the causes of the Reagan-Era Reduction in Imprisonment, they insisted on a drop in crime rates, a reduction in arrests, sending offenders to jail and not prison, fewer admissions to prison, more releases from prison, and fewer parole suspensions. With the increasing population in prisons, the authors delve on the possibility that California can reduce its prison population again. They come up with some of the reasons that make it hard for decarceration and they include; impediments to reform, the disappearing public purse, the reduction in state-level authority, the perils of high visibility, the vanishing influence of governmental expertise and the growing influence of direct democracy, and the belief in the efficacy of imprisonment.

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