NCJ Number
172973
Date Published
1997
Length
7 pages
Annotation
Scotland's Prison Service has reviewed its inmate programs and sentence planning over the past 5 years and has committed itself to improving inmate programs through four crucial steps, starting with the development of a comprehensive range of inmate needs and risk assessment instruments as part of planning and program selection.
Abstract
The other steps are to test a range of preferred programs that involve collaborations between prisons and headquarters, to create a system of preferred-program accreditation, and to establish a central monitoring and evaluation function to provide prisons and headquarters management with performance data. A partnership approach is being introduced this year to develop inmate programs centrally, with appropriate input from the field, and to manage their implementation and delivery locally. Preferred programs are likely to cover cognitive skills, anger management, sex offending, drug abuse, parenting, and addictions. The overall initiative results from public expectations and research findings that reveal that properly managed and targeted inmate programs can reduce recidivism and can thereby improve public safety beyond the effects of secure confinement.