NCJ Number
87974
Date Published
Unknown
Length
127 pages
Annotation
A series of papers covers topics in corrections, including prison overcrowding, restitution, and meeting prison standards; juvenile deinstitutionalization and the violent juvenile offender; sentencing trends and debates in the United States; reducing court delay; and community crime prevention.
Abstract
One paper indicates that data from all U.S. correctional facilities show that State institutions are very near their population limits by any standards, but these occupancy and density data are not assumed to indicate crowding, defined as environmental factors which contribute to inmate stress. A review of restitution programs shows the importance of conceptualizing and assigning priority to various multiple goals for innovative projects, so as to avoid goal conflicts and confusion in implementation. Excerpts are also presented from a program model on the organization of correctional services. A paper on upgrading the prison system notes that while there are different views on the purpose and form for such upgrading, a point of departure is the broad goal of providing humane physical conditions and an environment of security for both inmates and staff. Following a study of the Massachusetts experience with the deinstitutionalization of juveniles, major findings and recommendations are summarized from a study of serious juvenile crime that focused on offender and offense characteristics, substance abuse, legislation, jurisdiction, confidentiality of juvenile records, programs, and economic impact of juvenile crime. A series of papers on sentencing debates and sentencing trends in the United States considers the shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing and the Illinois experience with sentencing reform. An outline of some problems in court delay presents various techniques for dealing with court case delay either by reducing the number of cases handled by the courts or curtailing the amount of judicial time devoted to each case. Papers on community crime prevention consider crime prevention programming and the role of the community-based organizations in community crime prevention. For individual entries, see NCJ 87974-82.