Politics of Care: Reflections on the Provision of Residential Services

• NCJ Number: 111376
• Author(s): D G Evans
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Presentation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An address to the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Half-Way Houses, Inc., on April 19, 1988, in Boston, Mass.

Annotation

Supporters of residential correctional services must exert political influence to counter the negative consequences and misconceptions of four major criminal justice trends: government cost cutting, the control-culture mentality, community resistance to halfway houses, and care and crime prevention.

Abstract

Government cost-cutting efforts have emphasized the privatization of corrections. This has increased the number of agencies that depend on government contracts for their survival and has led to a focus on risk management rather than offender needs assessment. There is also a trend toward punitiveness that has precluded the provision of services traditionally provided by halfway houses and other residential services. Part of the prevailing mood of the control-culture mentality is community resistance to any form of community residential program that may have some element of risk for community safety. Crime prevention emphases have focused on threats to the affluent, although the poor are more often criminally victimized, and offender rehabilitation and care services have weak political support. Efforts must be mounted to exert political influence on policymakers to have a more balanced emphasis on offender services relative to offender surveillance and control.