NCJ Number
70370
Date Published
1980
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Services of the Salvation Army provided to females brought before Canadian courts are described.
Abstract
The Salvation Army is an international evangelical organization that operates within the motivations and ethical concerns of Christianity. Its services to female offenders focus on reclamation rather than on condemnation. The Salvation Army recognizes that courts are more interested in rendering sanctions for illegal behavior than in understanding mitigating circumstances behind illegal behavior and trying to meet the emotional and financial needs of the offender. The Salvation Army approaches the offender from the perspective of what she needs to deal with various debilitating problems in her life. The Canadian courts often use Salvation Army officers as probation officers where a relationship with that officer has been established prior to the court appearance. Salvation Army officers make daily visits to the booking office and holding cells to interview defendants. The results of a visit may mean not only speaking on an offender's behalf in the court or offering the Salvation Army's help, but may also mean getting in touch with the offender's family and having some plan of assistance in mind should the offender be released without conditions or under probation. The battery of services provided by the Salvation Army includes family and individual counseling, institutional visits, prerelease planning, chaplaincy services in remand and detention centers, presentence reports, postrelease emergency assistance, parole supervision, and probation homes for young offenders. Examples of the Salvation Army's help with female offenders are provided. For related documents, see NCJ 70361-69 and 70371-77.