Goals Commonly Associated with Incarceration - Term Paper Example

As crime rates increase as incarceration rates do in direct proportion, alternative programs are sought to align with correctional objectives for which procedures with incarceration have typically been preferred in the understanding that confinement and execution of related means prove truly efficient in redressing a criminal behavior. However, since modern times have critically shaped lives based appreciably on the economic and political aspects with new conflicts and sets of struggles quite distinct from those of the past, current offenders have also adopted styles and ways of thinking which to some extent take to effect rare complications or cases needing equivalent resolution.

In most instances at present, conventional measures of incarceration with punishment, deterrence, and incapacitation become rather less conducive, especially for mental health considering situations in which prisoners with a history of psychological disorder worsen in prevailing conditions as to become contagious with fellow inmates. The availability of community supervision, as an alternative remedy employs a more humane and sensible approach which apparently is not covered within customary incarceration. While the latter remains emphatic with the old rigid tradition of confining the accused and convicted criminals, community supervision may assume flexible forms capable of reducing the harshness or severity of the former system given that the offender complies to accept a specified period of supervision by a probation officer and abide by an additional set of particular rules required by the court while the sentence the offending party ought to serve is put under suspension (Community, 2010).

Justice advocates and some critics on their side might react in opposition and raise protests toward any possible impunity with community supervision on the ground that punishment must be executed for those who deserve it. Upon deeper evaluation of such mechanism to differentiate from incarceration, nevertheless, supervision in its essence would prove beneficial in being able to transform a criminal from a violent character to a sane and sound well-being. If incarceration has since been able to produce targeted results at resolving to renew the moral conduct of convicted individuals while in the course of being punished, discipline offered through a less crude option of community supervision may be customized to adjust to the specific needs of a criminal. This way, much focus may be granted to the latter who, by personal choice of the officer-in-charge, could avail of education, spiritual counseling, and adequate monitoring when properly handled.

While the chance of obtaining much-needed tranquility and avoiding the negative impact of banishment, public pillory, or corporal punishment may be found highly attainable with getting appropriate supervision, incarceration experience may, on the contrary, severely create an imbalance in the mental and physical states of inmates who are inclined to get ill about such areas (Farlex, 2010). Apparently, the gradual process associated with this type of correction, which treats felons nearly like they are otherwise, would determine if further measures are necessary beyond patient supervision.