Contemporary Issues in Community - Assignment Example

Contemporary Issues in Community Background The need for a better understanding of the issues defining community corrections comes from the fact that 97% of the total number of the inmates who are currently held in US jails will eventually be allowed to go back to the community. In an alarming state of affairs, most inmates come out of prison with no effective supervision or aftercare services, thus making it hard for them to fit in the community. In addition to this, an effective transition process through which inmates leave the prisons and rejoin the community and to be able to lead crime-lives are crucial for an effective protection of the public. This means that the main objective of corrections should just not to operate secure, orderly, protected and affordable prisons, but also to enhance public safety by ensuring that is an efficient inmate transition (Parent, & Barnett, 2002). Research conducted over the years has shown that prisons and community corrections are intricately linked to a point where a change in one affects the other. In nearly all the cases, arrests lead to jail time, convictions lead to initial trial, and depending on the severity of the crime, the offender is released to the community and if the community correction fails, the offender goes to prison. In reality, a very small minority comes into contact with criminal justice interventions meaning most of them go through community correction. It is therefore ideal to ensure that the right correctional method is administered to ensure that the community correction does not fail (Parent, & Barnett, 2002). Effective Correctional Practice Prison administrators are without doubt instrumental that prisons operate smoothly and in preparing the inmates for safe release. These two goals are related in an empirical manner in that any poor institutional behavior is tied to the higher rates of post-release crimes. Over the years, research has shown that the most effective method of ensuring that prisoners have good conduct is by setting up efficient correctional programs. In this case, for correctional facilities to be secure and safe, prison administrators ought to certify that the correctional platforms that they develop are based on evidence based practice (McGuire, 2005). For prisons, the concentration on short-term operational goals is logical but in most cases this can effortlessly diminish the available economic and human resources. In most cases, such concentration leaves minimal resources for the agencies to fulfill its commitment on the wider objectives of effective corrections as well as public safety. Economically speaking, this is however not real since the resources utilized in programming are usually cost effective. The only ideal way for community corrections to be successful is by formulating new programs based on the ones that have been proved to be functional (McGuire, 2005). Upon the first admission to jail and prison, classifying inmates correctly is a major concern for managing inmates. The main objectives for inmate classification are guiding and structuring of the decision making process, which offers the ideal roadmap for the correctional staff to follow in the decision making process on placement. Another objective for inmate classification is reducing bias since it ensures that decisions are formulated based on policy and research evidence touching on factors associated to institutional regulation (Parent, & Barnett, 2002). Over the years, research has also indicated that objective and statistical prediction tools in most cases create more autonomous decisions than expert judgment. Research has also indicated that staff left to their own expert discretion will act in a conservative manner since there are severe possible consequences for under-classification such as institution based violence, inmate getaway, as well as criminal/violent offending in case of escape. In addition to this, over-classification has also got its consequences although they are less pointed as compared to those of under-classification. Research has consistently shown that any event of under-classification produces higher rates of prison misconducts that are proportional to the inmates that have appropriately been places at a certain security level (Simpson, 2001). Given the above analogy, it is obvious that inmate classification is an effective strategy of minimizing institutional misconducts. This is attained by identifying the inmates who have a higher likelihood of having adjustment difficulties and dealing with this by offering higher security placements or enhanced internal security within a prison. For this reason, a significant consideration in assessing the suitability of a security classification model is the forecast of institutional misconducts and brutal misconducts. Given that inmate classification has been proved to be ideal in ensuring safety in prisons, community correctional officers can use it to ensure that inmates fit into the community after release from prisons. The factors that are predictive of prison misconducts are issues as age, gender, history of violence, and program participation (McGuire, 2005). Correctional Programming Apart from inmate classification, correctional programming is another program that can work effectively in inducting inmates back into the community. With the inception of correctional programming, self-help groups as well as therapeutic communities are losing their popularity given the enhanced efficiency of skills-based programs that give attention to risk factors for criminality. In addition to this, correctional facilities are using treatment targets that are outside the traditional range of interventions. Based on a prison arrangement outlook, criminal jeopardy evidence must be inducted into homogeneous program project decisions (Simpson, 2001). This is a great need for the available programs to be broadened to focus on criminogenic needs. Criminogenic need dynamics are transformable factors that when transformed have an effect on future criminality. An example of this is antisocial attitudes since reducing this need significantly lowers the chances of reoffending. In most cases, correctional officers tend to focus on needs that do not bring down re-offending. The criminogenic needs that community officers can focus on are factors such as criminal history, education/employment skills as well as financial skills. Others are family situations, accommodation stability as well as friends (Simpson, 2001). Criminal need/risk has a direct relation to treatment concentration since individuals who have the lowest risk should receive minimal or no risk. As the risk rises, then the concentration of treatment should rise. This means that individuals who are at high risk of offending should be accorded a higher concentrated intervention and aftercare, the manner in which the programs are selected is also critical. In programming, correctional officers should always use always use the responsivity principle, which states that the methods and approaches of treatment should be selected in order to efficiently influence the treatment objectives. For example, most inmates are adult learners and this is a factor that should be factored when planning and executing programs. For this reason, efficient intervention programs are the ones that are equivalent to the inmate’s risk, focus on criminogenic needs, and presented in a manner that is efficient in meeting treatment objectives. Research has demonstrated that programs that are based on these principles have a higher likelihood of reducing re-offending. This model should keep on being developed since it focuses on what works and it can be instrumental in defining correctional facilities not only in America but all over the world (Simpson, 2001). At the present, most prisons tend to focus on punishment which has no empirical support. Unlike in the current system, inmate classification must transform into being able to differentially distribute funds and programming based on research evidence. This means that unlike the current scenario where prisons have only one program, there must be multiple programs that are available to address treatment needs. Today, most correctional staff refer inmates to programs based on availability and not need. Recent evidence has showed that the level of programming is critical if gains are to be achieved and maintained. It is not hard to see an individual who was drinking at the time they committed a crime being referred to a cognitive change program simply because it is the only one available at a correctional facility (Simpson, 2001). Another contemporary issue in community correction that needs to be adopted is that of inmate motivation. Research has indicated that poorly motivated inmates have poor program outcomes. This means that such inmates have a higher chance of being involved in correctional incidents and have also a higher probability of re-offending. Motivation needs to be addressed to ensure that no resources are wasted since in most cases inmates with low motivation end up being referred to challenging programs which do not produce any meaningful change to the inmate. Lack of motivation has been demonstrated to be one of the major reasons behind program dropouts for different types of offenders. This program needs to be expanded on if tangible results are to be realized in as far as correctional programs are involved (Simpson, 2001). References McGuire, J. (2005). What Works: Reducing Re-offending. Guidelines from Research and Practice. Chichester: Wiley. Parent, D. & Barnett, L. (2002). Transition from Prisons to Community Initiative. Washington, DC: National Institute of Corrections. Simpson, D. (2001). Modeling treatment process and outcomes. Addiction, 96(2), 207-211. Read More