NCJ Number
84187
Date Published
1982
Length
151 pages
Annotation
This study focuses on how the judicial system manages or fails to manage its relationships with correctional organizations and suggests methods of improving communications.
Abstract
The literature review emphasized the need to provide judges with reports concerning offender populations and rehabilitation effectiveness, but few works directly addressed issues on the court's relationship with corrections. These interrelationships were analyzed by collecting data through 73 telephone interviews with State and local judicial and correctional system officials in 8 States. Respondents from four of these States reported that their prison systems were unconstitutionally overcrowded. A total of 78 percent agreed that their incarceration facilities lacked adequate rehabilitation programs. Responses indicated that correctional officials tend to initiate more joint meetings than do court officials. Most of the officials thought that training programs dealing with alternatives to institutionalization and with basic issues in the courts-corrections interface would be helpful. Recommendations call for the expansion of trial court administrative activities regarding pretrial jailing and its alternatives and the evaluation of court-corrections data exchanges. Footnotes and tables are included.