As the need for increasingly punitive community-based sanctions grew, the demand for a greater variety of programs and services became apparent, as did the importance of a more seamless transition from total incapacitation to total freedom of prisoners re-entering society. A variety of community corrections methods have developed over the years, one being the institution of halfway houses. To adequately understand residential community corrections, one must consider the origins, components, and effectiveness of halfway houses.
Initially halfway houses in the United States were operated by nonprofit organizations as a means for recently released prisoners to find their footing upon re-entry. Between 1816 and 1930, the function of the halfway house was to provide interim food and shelter while the offender looked for work and became financially stable enough to support themself. Participation was strictly voluntary as state support was lacking, primarily due to the fact that it was and is strongly believed ex-offenders should minimize their contact with one another. (Alarid and Del Carmen 182)
A transition to treatment and correctional supervision via halfway house in the 1950’s garnered great support as concern regarding parole revocation and crime increased. In a matter of years halfway houses began to receive government assistance and financial support. Funding sources were dramatically increased through the 1968 Safe Streets Act and a focus on community corrections was prevalent. By the time funding began to decrease in the 1980’s, halfway houses had found their place in corrections as an alternative to incarceration and a safe place for offenders to transition out of prison, reducing potential problems due to overcrowding. (A...
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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.
As offenders are diverted to community residential treatment centers, work release programs and study release centers, the system sees a decrease or stabilization of the jail population. While the alleviation of overcrowding is a benefit it is not the only purpose of diversion. A large majority of crimes are committed while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Studies have shown that more than half of all individuals arrested in the United States will test positive for illegal substances (NCVC, 2008). Efforts to reduce crime through incarceration usually fail because incarceration does not address the main problem, the offender’s substance abuse.
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
The purpose of a halfway house or also called a recovery house is generally to allow people to begin the process of reintegration with society, where monitoring and support will be provided. This is to reduce the risk of recidivism or relapse where in most cases ex-convicts would be released directly back into society. The halfway houses that is being purposed is meant solely for the reintegration of persons who have been recently released from prison or jail, others are meant for people with chronic mental health disorders, and others are for ex-convicts with substance abuse issues.
The book titled Beyond Bars: Rejoining Society After Prison offers invaluable lessons of how both men and women may successfully depart prison and return to society. The book was written by Jeffrey Ross and Stephen Richards, both of whom are college professors and criminal justice experts. The population of prisons across the United States has increased dramatically in recent decades despite overall crime rates decreasing during the same time period. Approximately seven million American people are in some form of correctional custody. Between the years1980 and 2000, America’s prison population increased by 500 percent. During the same time period, the number of prisons grew by 300 percent (Ross and Richards, xii). Close to 50 percent of people admitted to confinement have previously served time, exemplifying that the criminal justice system “recycles” inmates through the system again and again (Ross and Richards, xi). Unfortunately, many convicts simply do not remember how to or are ill-equipped to return to society once their sentence ends. Ross and Richards, through their valuable lessons within their book, seek to lessen the problems that ex-prisoners may face when released from prison.
In recent years, there has been controversy over mass incarceration rates within the United States. In the past, the imprisonment of criminals was seen as the most efficient way to protect citizens. However, as time has gone on, crime rates have continued to increase exponentially. Because of this, many people have begun to propose alternatives that will effectively prevent criminals from merely repeating their illegal actions. Some contend that diversion programs, such as rehabilitation treatment for drug offenders, is a more practical solution than placing mentally unstable individuals into prison.
Although putting juveniles into institutions, for many juvenile offenders occurred in the first decades of the 1900s, extensive use of probation for juveniles existed as well. As it does today, probation gave a middle ground nature for judges connecting release and placement in an institution. By 1927, trial programs for juvenile offenders existed in approximately every state. In the 1940s and 1950s, reformers attempted to improve the conditions found in most juvenile institutions. Alternatives to institutions emerged, such as forestry and probation camps. These camps provided a prearranged setting for male juvenile offenders, while emphasizing learning and occupational skills. Though, the efficiency of these options as alternatives to incarceration was dubious since they were not obtainable to the worst offenders. Yet, these changes marked the start of formal, community-based instruction that would turn out to be more extensive in following decades.
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?
Intermediate sanctions are a new punishment option developed to fill the gap between traditional probation and traditional jail or prison sentences and to better match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime. Intermediate sanctions served in the community now account for 15 percent of adjudicated juvenile cases (Puzzanchera, Adams, and Sickmund, 2011). All intermediate sanctions are enforced by the United States Criminal Justice System. The main purposes of intermediate sanctions: (1) better match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime, (2) reduce institutional crowding, (3) control correctional costs. Primarily, this is a needed method of punishment to make offenders accountable for the extent of crime and if so let offenders live in their communities to fulfil punishment if not too extensive.
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
It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those which 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. For county jails, the problem of cost and recidivism are exacerbated by budgetary constraints and various state mandates. Due to the inability of incarceration to satisfy long-term criminal justice objectives and the very high expenditures associated with the sanction, policy makers at various levels of government have sought to identify appropriate alternatives(Luna-Firebaugh, 2003, p.51-66).
It is in these communities that the drugs, violence, and values that constitute everyday life in prison are eliminated, and elements of prison that generally ‘rebuke rehabilitation” (Inciardi, Martin, Surratt) disappear. They supply treatment, as well as aftercare, and reentry services to provide continuous support for inmates once they are released in hopes of diminishing situations of relapse. Similar to therapeutic communities in the general public, the primary staff that facilitates these programs are “recovering addicts” that participated and were rehabilitated by the therapeutic communities themselves. This allows for inmates to not only feel equal amongst one another, but enables them to form bonds and develop a trust towards others; which has shown to assist in the inmate's desire to not continue their old behaviors. Therapeutic communities perceive drug abuse in individuals as a “symptom” of a larger issue. Opposed to the mentality that depicts drug usage as being the primary reason for why ‘they did what they did’, as current prison programs have maintained. The overall goal of prison based therapeutic communities is to identify negative patterns of “behavior, thinking, and feeling” in inmates that predispose drug abuse, and provide methods to
Sung, L. G.-e. (2011). Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration. Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
With the substantial increase in prison population and various changes that plague correctional institutions, government agencies are finding that what was once considered a difficult task to provide educational programs, inmate security and rehabilitation programs are now impossible to accomplish. From state to state, each correctional organization is coupled with financial problems that have depleted the resources to assist in providing the quality of care in which the judicial system demands from these state and federal prisons. Judges, victims, and prosecuting attorneys entrust that once an offender is turned over to the correctional system, that the offender will receive the punishment imposed by the court, be given services that aid in the rehabilitation of those offenders that one day will be released back into society, and to act as a deterrent to other criminals contemplating criminal acts that could result in their incarceration. Has our nation’s correctional system finally reached it’s critical collapse, and as a result placed American citizens in harm’s way to what could result in a plethora of early releases of inmates to reduce the large prison populations in which independent facilities are no longer able to manage? Could these problems ultimately result in a drastic increase in person and property crimes in which even our own law enforcement is ineffective in controlling these colossal increases in crime against society?