Long-Term Trends in Criminal Justice in the United States - How Did We Get Here?

• NCJ Number: 93481
• Author(s): P P Lejins
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 20 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Prepared for the 28th Annual Southern Conference on Corrections, February 24-25, 1983

Annotation

This address discusses long-range criminal justice policies and their results.

Abstract

Throughout human history there have been three methods of dealing with criminal behavior: punishment, incapacitation, and cause-removing or corrections. All three are valid and necessary. Corrections in the United States had a long and upward struggle trying to break through the monopoly of punitive sanctions and incapacitation. When it did, it developed a proprietary attitude, ignoring those situations in which punishment and incapacitation were most appropriate. The first step in the resolution of the current criminal justice policy crisis is the explicit recognition of the importance of all three methods, their use, and careful coordination of all three. There are obviously offenders who require handling by only one of these methods, justice as some need two, or possibly all three methods. Research will establish the identifying marks of these various types of offenders. Criminal justice and criminology researchers should address themselves to this task.