Community Corrections – Review
States and counties are fast transforming and moving from away from institutional-based to community corrections as a way of curbing the ever increasing rate of incarcerations. Your choice of employing community corrections as a way of reducing incarceration rates is commendable and relevant because there is a need to reduce the growing size and cost of jails and prisons.
Your work pointed out insufficient staffing and lack of proper training as one of obstacles that have crippled the use of community corrections and the effectiveness of supervision agencies. Moreover, I think you can also include financial constraint as a single most notable obstacle to the success of community corrections as a way of reducing the high incarceration rates.
The strength of your paper lies in the fact that you pointed out the interaction between courts, offenders and defendants as the complexity of using community corrections. This is true because there is very poor understanding of the roles of key players in the criminal justice system. An in-depth understanding of the roles that ought to be played by the courts, the legislature and the executive in ensuring that supervision agencies deliver according to the expectations of the public is important. Further, as noted in your immediate actions, it is utterly important to support those recently released from jails and prisons to acclimatize and find their place in the society. Through provision of education, financial, physical, psychological and emotional support, such individuals stand a chance to realize their potential and shun criminal activities.
However, I think the weakness of your analysis that needs improvement lies in how you will measure the success of community corrections in reducing incarceration rates using the quality of life of citizens as a measure. Based on the suggestions you have given as measures of the success of community corrections, what if you included the number of offenders who successfully serve their sentences in the community either on work release or other related programs and completely reform? Furthermore, expounding on the long term actions necessary for the implementation and success of community corrections such as social and family support will serve to improve and make your recommendation much more informative.
Largely, the discussion on what community correction entails, the criminological theory and the entire examination of the impact, and role of community corrections in reducing the rate of incarceration is admirable and venerable.
