Corrections Flashcards
(39 cards)
Sometimes people are held in jail prior to being convicted of a crime because they are awaiting their trail. (This is punishment before conviction
Pre Trial Detention
Are for only convicted felons.
• Inmates are usually held for a longer period of time versus jails.
Prisions
Are for both convicted felons and people awaiting trail (pre-trail detention).
Jails
Purpose of corrections
Punishing Offenders
Keeping commuities safe
Rehabilitate offenders
Eliminate offender’s ability to commit further crime through incarceration.
Incapacitation
Idea of restoring peace by reintegrating once offenders back into the community.
• This can be done through community service and other small tasks in the community before being officially a community member again.
Restorative Justice
- Punishment as a form of rehabilitation.
- Hard work & God were central to rehabilitation.
- “Penitentiaries” emerge.
THe Colonial Period
period of time with a new way of thinking about the human condition in a more intellectual sense.
• Ex: People see now that their Kings are not gods & that people aren’t born bad/good, they can change and be rehabilitated.
• The founding fathers of America were born from this period.
Period of enlightenment
• 4 Principals:
1) A secure and sanitary building.
2) Inspection to ensure that offenders followed the rules.
3) Abolition of fees charged offenders for their food.
4) A reformatory regimen.
The penitentiary act of 1779
• 5 Principals:
1) Prisoners would not be treated vengefully,
2) Solitary confinement would prevent further corruption.
3) In isolation, offenders would reflect on their transgressions and repent.
4) Solitary confinement would be punishment.
5) Solitary confinement would be economical
The Pennsylvania system
- Isolation at night
* Workshop during the day
New york (auburn) system
- Birth of the knowledge that institutional corrections were the way to deal with offenders, especially within the states.
Late 1800’s
• The Medical Model: 1) Social deficiencies. 2) Psychological deficiencies. 3) Biological deficiencies. • The Decline of Rehabilitation: 1) Public concern about rising crime rates 2) Studies challenged treatment • The Emergence of Crime Control: 1) Determinate sentencing 2) Incarceration 3) Risk containment 4) Intensive supervision probation 5) Mandatory penalties 6) Evidence-based correction
Corrections in the 20th century
V• Billions in budget deficits.
• Six times as many people incarcerated as in the 1970’s.
Today
• Prisons and prison administrators were largely left on their own to manage prisons.
o Very little external pressure (Courts, the public)
o Courts for example took a “hands off” approach
History of Prisons in context
• At nearly every stage of “reform”, challenges to the contemporary system became self-apparent.
o Crime generally continued to rise
o Recidivism was above desired levels
o Conditions in prisons deplorable
o In some cases, prison violence and riots emerged
• The “reality” of prisons often fell quite short of the intended model.
Cycles of Reform
• By the 1970s, external entities such as the courts and public experienced greater interest in prisons.
o Courts could no longer ignore allegations of abuse.
o Images of large prisons riots were streamed into households via media.
• The public, once supportive of “rehabilitation”, became much less so inclined
External interests in prisons
• Three factors played an important role in the decline of rehabilitation.
- Less political support
- As crime rates appeared to grow. “rehabilitation” money diverted to other correctional areas.
- Incarceration boom made delivery of treatment services difficult.
- Massive influx of prisoners
- Physical space constrained; Spaced prioritized for housing inmates.
DEcline of Rehab
• Reasons for why and how punishment has evolved over the centuries
o Connected explicitly to goals of punishment.
Punishment from the middle ages to the american revolution
- To be just, punishment must have preventative qualities (deterrence); retribution not justified.
- Rational link between crime and punishment
- Certain and swift punishment more important than severity.
Advocated for utilitarian approach to question of justice
- Bentham’s ideas were based on utilitarianism- greatest good for greatest number of people.
- Punishment is good if it keeps communities’ safer for the greatest amount of people. (Deterrence Theory)
- Ex- Capital Punishment may not be deterrent enough because the public can’t see it happen in order to be deterred by it.
- Sanctions should have a preventative quality.
- Human behavior governed through rational calculus is intended to max pleasure and min pain. Weighing cost and benefits, also rational choice theory.
Jeremy Bentham and Hedonic Calculus
Idea that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Utilitarian approach
Purposes of corrections
Retribution
deterrence
incapacitation
rehabilitation
• Mandated rules and procedures that people agree upon in hope to achieve some kind of community goal(s).
policy
