Alternatives to incarceration - Essay Example

Alternatives to incarceration Zehr, Howard . (2007). Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice. Scottsdale: Herald Press. The of this article, Howard Zehr has a solid background in the criminal justice system, having been a restorative justice professor at the University of Eastern Mennonite in Virginia. He also spent some twenty years in the Crime and Justice office, in the Mennonite Central Committee. It is during these stints that he has come to be considered as one of the preeminent scholars in Restorative Justice, which has been a response to criminal justice, looking to repair harm instead of incarceration and establishment of deterrence. In the article, the author examines crime and justice assumptions that he refers to as; retributive, considering practical, historical, and biblical alternatives (Zehr, 2007). The article aids in finding alternatives to incarceration as it proposes a restorative model, basing it on the offenders and victim’s needs. The article expounds on crime experience, community justice, justice as paradigm, and the offender-victim program for reconciliation. Howard Zehr takes the position that social organizations, particularly churches, have a major role to play in this alternative to incarceration. A "restorative" model is proposed that is based on the needs of victims and offenders, past ways of responding to crime, recent experiments and biblical principles (Zehr, 2007). Topics include: the experience of crime; justice as paradigm; community justice; covenant justice; and the victim-offender reconciliation program and the role of the church. Sullivan, Dennis. (2006). Restorative Justice: Healing the Foundations of Our Everyday Lives. Monsey : Willow Tree Press. Dennis Sullivan, the author of this article, brings over twenty years of experience in law, representing businesses, families, and individuals. As a member of the Massachusetts CPA society, National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, and the AARP Legal Services Network, he possesses years of experience in crime and justice. In what is a passionate article, the author advocates for an alternative to criminal justice system’s reflex of punishment. Like Howard Zehr, he proposes a model of restorative justice that has its basis in restorative justice. However, he goes further to dispute the definition of justice as giving individuals their deserts, instead pining for a model based on the needs of all participants (Sullivan, 2006). This article expounds on how this model can be used to resolve conflicts arising between offenders and victims in the school, families, neighborhoods, and workplaces. The philosophy put forth by the author should help advance the view that man develops potential when the society respects their needs and goes some way to meeting them, and thus, allowing alternatives to incarceration to work. Nagin, Daniel S. (2000). Prison overcrowding and alternatives to incarceration. Harrisburg : Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. The author is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Statistics and Public Policy, authoring the article using his immense knowledge in corrections and his involvement in death penalty issues. In the article, the author is focused on solving current issues that have led to overcrowding in prisons. Unlike the previous two articles, the author looks at alternatives to incarceration as being important to reduce costs of housing prisoners to the US government. Going further in his arguments, he offers alternatives to incarcerating offenders, which includes the use of intermediate sanctions (Nagin, 2000). This article offers insight into these alternatives, which the author lists as house arrest, intensive probation/parole supervision, and shock incarceration. According to him, it would be better if the offenders were only needed to visit their probation officers weekly, be tested randomly for drug use, and serve the community. That these alternatives are further proven to be less expensive and more effective, makes this article an invaluable resource in coming up with workable alternatives to incarceration. Johnstone , Gerry. (2011). Restorative Justice : Ideas, Practices, Debates . New York : Routledge. Gerry Johnstone has been a professor in the UK teaching law at the University of Hull. His previous work in the analysis of practices, values, and ideas give the book added credibility and, in this article, he explores alternatives to incarceration and the role that it can play in finding solutions to grievances from both the offender and the victim. Unlike the previous articles, this one connects the aspect of restorative justice with a recent increase of interest in slavery reparations (Johnstone, 2011). The book has been used across the world due to its invaluable analytical work, contending that restorative justice is better than traditional retributive justice is. The book includes a chapter on how restorative justice and other alternatives to incarceration like probation have developed and shifted fundamentally in the last ten years. In a unique point of view that adds to the topic, he traces how the revolutionizing of the criminal justice system has now become a social movement, which seeks to improve the acceptance of offenders into society, whereas also respecting the victims, in order to do away with ineffective incarceration (Johnstone, 2011). Wooldredge, John. (2007). Predicting the estimated use of alternatives to incarceration. Journal of Quantitative Criminology , 121-142. Professor John Wooldredge lectures at Cincinnati University in the Criminal Justice Department. He is widely regarded for his work in institutional corrections with regards to crowding, as well as processing of criminal cases, such as sentencing and recidivism. The author expands on the arguments given by Daniel Nagin on how alternatives to incarceration, may reduce the increasing costs of incarceration and how it can reduce crowding in prisons. However, he goes further to discuss the hindrances that plague judges in using the alternatives because of sentencing policies in various states (Wooldredge, 2007). The article reports on a study that shows that the size of the court, the sentencing policies in the state, and the plea bargaining degree are significant in predicting how a judge may use various alternatives to incarceration, which are open to him or her. This help in developing the topic as it will help understand the barriers to using alternatives to incarceration. von Hirsch, Andrew. (2006). Doing Justice: the Choice of Punishments. Boston: Northeastern University Press. As a penal theorist and a legal philosopher, as well as a Director at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology in the Center for Penal Theory and Ethics, Andrew von Hirsch, makes a compelling case that helps to expound on the topic of discussion. The article points out various flaws in the reasoning that judges need to be given wide discretion in sentencing (von Hirsch, 2006). This article has an opinion that is contrary to that held by Professor John Wooldredge, instead claiming that judges, in fact, should be given less discretion in sentencing. Instead, he argues that the judge should determine the length of the sentence in relation to the offender’s deserts. In his opinion, the judge should decide the length of the sentence based on what the offender deserves within limits that are well defined. The article will allow the topic to discuss how this would lead to limitations on when incarceration can be used, its alternatives, and elimination of indeterminate sentences. That this article is as a result of investigations overt four years carried out by the Incarceration Study Committee, will prove invaluable to research ion the topic. Read More