My topic is based on house arrest (HA) with electronic monitoring (EM) and I will be arguing in favour of it being an alternative to confinement. This alternative method is reliable, lenient, efficient, and effective. It is reliable because it is a valid option for offenders who committed less severe crimes, leaving more space in prison for serious offenders. After all, there is a growing concern of jails getting overcrowded, meaning more offenders are under custody in one institution that requires more supervision. This point relates to how HA with EM is efficient because it is known to save money compared to the higher costs of incarceration. This alternative option is lenient in the sense that offenders are not completely stripped away from their livelihood. To elaborate, offenders will still be capable of working to financially support themselves and their family members. This ties into HA with EM being effective because although it is lenient, the offenders are under strict supervision with EM and undergo drug and alcohol tests to develop discipline. This practice is beneficial because it also keeps track of the offender's discipline that promotes rehabilitation while making it impossible for the offender to flee from the program. By analysing the cost effectiveness, perceptions of offenders and citizens, and general advantages of HA with EM, I conclude that it is a valid alternative to confinement.
HA with EM is an efficient alternative to confinement, especially when it comes to offenders of less severe crimes. Courtright et al. report how HA with EM was used as a means to cut down on jail costs in Western Pennsylvania, when this alternative method to incarceration was first launched on October 1, 1992 (1997). In terms of ...
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...ion of Citizen Attitudes." Crime & Delinquency 41(3):332-346.
Chicknavorian, Elizabeth D. 1990. "House Arrest: A Viable Alternative to the Current Prison System." New England Journal on Criminal & Civil Confinement 16(1):53-58.
Martin, Jamie S., Kate Hanrahan, and James H. Bowers, Jr. 2009. "Offenders' Perceptions of House Arrest and Electronic Monitoring." Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 48(6):547-570.
Sandhu, Harjit S., Richard A. Dodder, and Minu Mathur. 1993. "House Arrest: Success and Failure Rates in Residential and Nonresidential Community-Based Programs." Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 19(1-2):131-144.
Gainey, Randy R., and Brian K. Payne. 2000. "Understanding the Experience of House Arrest with Electronic Monitoring: An Analysis of Quantitative and Qualitative Data" International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 44(1):84-96.
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.
Griest, Stephanie Elizondo. “The Torture of Solitary.” Wilson Quarterly. Spring 2012: 22-29. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
Introduction Alternatives to incarceration have been explored in recent years due to the overcrowding in the correctional system. Intermediate sanctions are one of those alternatives. Intermediate sanctions have long been used in the United States due to the benefits and options that it offers from saving money to reducing overcrowding, but it does, however, have its unfortunate flaws. There are many programs within intermediate sanctions that work, and some that fall behind. Intermediate sanctions are an alternative to the costly prison system, but to what end?
Prisons and correctional facilities in the United States have changed from rehabilitating people to housing inmates and creating breeding grounds for more violence. Many local, state, and federal prisons and correctional facilities are becoming more and more overcrowded each year. If the Department of Corrections (DOC) wants to stop having repeat offenders and decrease the volume of inmates entering the criminal justice system, current regulations and programs need to undergo alteration. Actions pushed by attorneys and judges, in conjunction current prison life (including solitary confinement), have intertwined to result in mass incarceration. However, prisoner reentry programs haven’t fully impacted positively to help the inmate assimilate back into society. These alterations can help save the Department of Corrections (DOC) money, decrease the inmate population, and most of all, help rehabilitate them. After inmates are charged with a crime, they go through the judicial system (Due Process) and meet with the prosecutor to discuss sentencing.
Drago, F., Galbiati, R. & Vertova, P. (2011). Prison conditions and recidivism. American law and economics review, 13 (1), pp. 103--130.
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION Valerie Hinton It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those who are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered.
In Western cultures imprisonment is the universal method of punishing criminals (Chapman 571). According to criminologists locking up criminals may not even be an effective form of punishment. First, the prison sentences do not serve as an example to deter future criminals, which is indicated, in the increased rates of criminal behavior over the years. Secondly, prisons may protect the average citizen from crimes but the violence is then diverted to prison workers and other inmates. Finally, inmates are locked together which impedes their rehabilitation and exposes them too more criminal
Zhang, S. X., Roberts, R. E. L., & Callanan, V. J. (2006). Preventing parolees from returning to prison through community-based reintegration. Crime & Delinquency, 52(4), 551-571.
Nieto, M. (1996). Community corrections punishments: An alternative to incarceration for non-violent offenders. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/96/08/
This model of corrections main purpose was to reintroducing the offenders in to the community. This Program was invented to help offenders in the transition from jail to the community, aid in the processes of finding jobs and stay connected to their families and the community. The needs of these individuals are difficult: the frequency of substance abuse, mental illness, unemployment, and homelessness is elevated among the jail population.
As the current prison structures and sentencing process continues to neglect the issues that current offenders have no change will accrue to prevent recidivism. The issue with the current structure of the prison sentencing process is it does not deal with the “why” the individual is an social deviant but only looks at the punishment process to remove the deviant from society. This method does not allow an offender to return back to society without continuing where they left off. As an offender is punished they are sentenced (removal from society) they continue in an isolated environment (prison) after their punishment time is completed and are released back to society they are now an outsider to the rapidly changing social environment. These individuals are returned to society without any coping skills, job training, or transitional training which will prevent them from continuing down th...
Coyle (2005). The 'Standard'. To say whether using prison as a form of punishment has aid in the quest of tackling the crime problem, one must first consider the purposes of the prison.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Prison was designed to house and isolate criminals away from the society in order for our society and the people within it to function without the fears of the outlaws. The purpose of prison is to deter and prevent people from committing a crime using the ideas of incarceration by taking away freedom and liberty from those individuals committed of crimes. Prisons in America are run either by the federal, states or even private contractors. There are many challenges and issues that our correctional system is facing today due to the nature of prisons being the place to house various types of criminals. In this paper, I will address and identify three major issues that I believe our correctional system is facing today using my own ideas along with the researches from three reputable outside academic sources.
Recidivism/repeated offense is the repetition of criminal activity, and it is determined by a prisoner who is released from the prison return to prison for a new offense. Rates of recidivism indicate the amount of released inmates have been rehabilitated, and the degree of severity of the punishments outside the prison. “An estimated 67.5% of prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested within three years, an increase over the 62.5% found for those released in 1983”(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2014). High rates of recidivism result in enormous costs, in the area of public safety, and high rates of recidivism could lead to disastrous social costs to the communities and the offenders themselves, as well as their families. Hence, the severe punishment in order to reduce the recidivism is necessary, as well as the education for prisoners is important, too.