NCJ Number
158983
Editor(s)
A T Harland
Date Published
1996
Length
293 pages
Annotation
By simultaneously clarifying the meaning of the demand for correctional options that work and establishing a baseline of information derived from a critical review of past attempts to supply these demands, this book aims to improve the odds that key decisionmakers will be more likely to choose correctional options that work in the future.
Abstract
The opening chapter presents a conceptual elaboration of the extensive range of possible lines of inquiry that are involved in examining what works in corrections. Two chapters analyze offender risk and need assessment as well as the development and use of statistical risk prediction techniques. The limitations of available tools are documented in these two chapters. After these chapters examine what is known about the prediction of risk, a chapter reviews a variety of approaches, largely associated with U.S. corrections, to managing that risk through surveillance, punishment, and control in community settings. Two chapters examine the extensive body of information that is building as a result of meta-analyses and reviews of the correctional treatment research literature. A seventh chapter addresses what works in corrections from the perspective of the correlates and principles of successful implementation of correctional programs. The final chapter advocates joint practitioner-researcher commitment and action as an important factor in bringing the findings of research to bear on policy and practice. For individual chapters, see NCJ 158984-91. 462 references and a subject index