NCJ Number
100558
Date Published
1983
Length
20 pages
Annotation
Although community-based corrections has been viewed by many as more humane and rehabilitatively effective than incarceration, the public views it as insufficiently punitive, and its diversionary aspects tend to expand state intervention in citizens' lives.
Abstract
Under the rehabilitation model of corrections, incarceration has been criticized as a setting that further criminalizes offenders and inhibits reintegration into the community. Community-based corrections has been proposed as a means of influencing offenders with positive aspects of community life and equipping them with the skills required for a law-abiding adjustment in the community while avoiding the debilitating labeling effects of imprisonment. Under the currently dominant justice model of corrections, however, community-based corrections is viewed as insufficiently punitive and incapacitative. Since there is little evidence that community-based corrections modifies criminal behavior, many perceive it as a lenient treatment of offenders which increases citizens' vulnerability to future victimization. Diversion programs also tend to expand state intervention into the lives of citizens who would not have formerly been supervised by the criminal justice system. Overall, community-based corrections does not radically change the influences that contribute to criminal behavior, since these reside primarily in the community's inequitable socioeconomic opportunities. 7 notes.