NCJ Number
232695
Journal
Victims & Offenders Volume: 5 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2010 Pages: 199-202
Date Published
July 2010
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This special issue presents papers commenting on changes in corrections during the past decade.
Abstract
The first paper focuses on the role of offender risk assessment and distills a wealth of information for guiding policymakers. The second paper examines the current utilization of community based sentencing options within federal sentencing guidelines and offers specific recommendations for reform. A paper focuses on community corrections, often referred to as the "stepchild" in correctionsnot receiving the attention of prisons, yet caring for nearly three-quarters of the correctional system clients. Another paper reports on changes in prisons during the past ten years. It reviews the topics of persistently increasing populations; the increased use of the supermax prison; the development and integration of technologies such as GPS, biometrics for security, and computer kiosks and video visitation for enhancing efficiencies of mundane or common tasks; the impacts of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA); and the increasing costs of corrections. The next paper summarizes recent research on prisoner reentry, presenting findings from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI)an unprecedented Federal effort that was based, in part, on the risk and needs principles and as is often the case, programs were not fully implemented. The final paper discusses why the incarceration rate is so high in the United States relative to other Western democracies, and discusses whether changes made in Finland and Germany might be effective in this country.