Community Corrections - Research Paper Example

In sum, “The goals of community corrections are to contribute to public safety and reduce future criminal conduct.” (Martin, 2006) How Do Community Corrections Affect the Society in Which They Are Practiced? Community corrections consist of a number of criminological treatment regimens that are designed from both forensic and psychiatric perspectives. These include counseling, medication, and various other sorts of interventions involving drug/alcohol treatment, cognitive restructuring to prevent sexual offences, anger management, and mental treatment.

The effect of these practices can be very positive toward the society at large. Instead of punishment, re-offending, and repeated punishment, community corrections aim at offender specific treatment and rehabilitation, which can minimize prison costs, arouse human values among the offenders, prevent recidivism, and prevent death penalties or life imprisonments. Thus, reduction of criminal behavior and mentality change of the offenders through community corrections play a constructive role in the society.

Hypothesis Community corrections can not only prevent recidivism through rehabilitation but also bring down the economic overheads of maintaining large prison systems. Prison System of Foreign Countries Unlike America, several foreign countries often undermine the human rights aspects of the correctional system. In these countries, correctional systems depended on the prison systems and community corrections remain a neglect field of criminology and rehabilitation. Less technical know-how, ignorance, budgetary restrictions, etc.

are the main reasons behind the primitiveness of community corrections in foreign countries. Prisons thus become a means of elimination and isolation rather than correction and rehabilitation. Views of the Other Nations on Imprisonment Most of the other nations have stricter implications for handling offenders. They aim to isolate the offender from the rest of the society. Generally due to budgetary constraints and lack of research, prisons in the other parts of the world have very strict code of conduct.

And where corruptions are prevalent, prisoners are often systematically exploited and tortured. Authoritarian countries often resort to repression and prisons become concentration camps. Some countries manage to maintain high level of discipline, while others have a highly corrupt prison system. If United States Adopt the Prison System of Another Country… For the purpose of this paper, let’s chose the example of the prison system of Japan. According to Cavadino and Dignan (2006, p. 184): “One of the most striking aspects of Japanese prison life, at least in the eyes of Western observers, is the extent to which it appears to repressively regimented by a highly detailed and restrictive set of prison rules, covering virtually every aspect of a prisoner’s daily life.

” Japanese prison system has an impressive orderliness, which is manifest by the fact that incidents of prison riots and prison breaking are very low in Japan. However, such incidents are often encountered in the prisons of the Western countries like United States. Therefore, if the Japanese prison system is adopted, the focus of law enforcing bodies will be at the restructuring of the country’s prison system. Like Japan, United States would also start putting less emphasis on community correct