Community Corrections: Better Means of Correcting Offenders (Essay Sample)

Community Corrections: Better Means of Correcting Offenders
Student’s Name
Institution
Abstract
Over the last three decades, it has been realized that confining offenders does not change their behavior. Community corrections provide offenders an opportunity to respond to treatment and rehabilitation differently. Correctional systems use classification systems to determine which offenders should be grouped together during the treatment-rehabilitation processes. It remains paramount that communities can remain safe if the number of people under correctional supervision continue to decline. Community-based correction programs remain the major driving forces that have contributed to reduced recidivism. Through community corrections, offenders integrate into the community without experiencing major problems.
Community Corrections: Better Means of Correcting Offenders
Introduction
Community corrections remain paramount in facilitating and maintaining a substantial part of the correctional systems. Offenders require correctional programs that ensure successive integration into the community after serving their terms in correctional facilities. Better treatment of offenders helps in the reduction and stabilizing of prison populations. Community corrections offer offenders an opportunity to change their behavior. Offenders should not be mistreated based on their crimes. Indeed, offenders should be placed under a correctional program that gives room for behavior change. Community corrections remain a viable alternative to incarceration for offenders at various levels of the criminal justice process. Offenders can choose alternatives based on crimes committed. Some of the alternatives available to offenders include restitution programs, bail supervision programs, probation, community service order, electronic monitoring, conditional sentence of imprisonment, and parole. Changes to corrections and conditional releases result in increased use of community corrections to expand correctional management of various classes of offenders. On the other hand, staff working in correctional facilities requires motivation to handle offenders in the right manner. The job requires professionalism, and employee development should be a key element in creating awareness on the need for collective behavior change. The employees must be ready to help all types of offenders develop new attitudes, accept existing punishment, and integrate back to the community after their punishments. Community corrections remain the best means of correcting offenders instead of incarcerating them for specified periods. Amongst the many forms of correction for offenders, community corrections serve as the most appropriate mode for them to lead better lives in preparation to fully join their community.
Importance of Community Corrections
Community corrections enable the community to participate in capacity building (Finn, 2011). Offenders cannot be viewed as mere criminals with no purpose in life. The community gets an opportunity to involve non-violent offenders in projects and activities meant to uplift its economic status. The community can help rehabilitate the offenders by allowing them to undertake their punishment without interruptions. The community needs to understand that incarceration alone cannot change the behavior of an offender (Center on Sentencing and Corrections, 2013). Offenders can undergo rehabilitation if integrated into the community while undertaking offender treatment programs.
For capacity building, the community can help save money that would be spent for offender upkeep in prison. In most cases, many offenders go to prison for petty crimes thus congesting prison facilities. If the offenders serve the community under community service order, governments can save money as well as reduce congestion in prison. Previously, all offenders could be incarcerated awaiting trial. According to Petersilia (2011), prisons would be holding fewer people if indeed imprisonment remains the best form of punishment. In the 1990s, crime rates increased forcing mass imprisonment of criminals. The upsurge in crime rates was blamed on lenient punishment especially for violent repeat offenders. Tough measures were passed to ensure violent offenders served longer terms in prison. The new laws ensured that offenders served longer terms in prison. However, Finn (2011) argues that the new laws increased the probability of convicts going to prison as well as raising the number of offenders imprisoned. Imprisonment cannot change the behavior of offenders unless community correction programs are adopted. A number of states across the globe spend millions of dollars on incarcerations whereas community correction and policing provide the best alternative.
Community corrections ensure protection of the public as well as eliminating chances of reoffending. Community corrections give offenders an opportunity to work closely with community members (Center on Sentencing and Corrections, 2013). Offenders realize that participating in various criminal activities endanger the lives of family members, relatives, and friends. Community correction programs in place ensure that only youthful offenders, first offenders or non-violent offenders participate in community based programs. The programs ensure the safety of the public or cases of reoffending (Wakefield & Hirschel, 2013). The correction program ensures that offenders are closely monitored during all the days of community service. The community based correction programs must ensure that the offenders are occupied to avoid idleness that might force them back to criminal activities. After being released from prison to perform communal activities, offenders can participate in counseling sessions, drug abuse rehabilitation program, and unrivalled participation in the community network program (Campbell, et al, 2009). In addition, offenders can be monitored through frequent health checks, curfew checks by visiting their homes, employment or unemployment verifications and disciplinary records. These activities ensure that the local community remains safe and protected.
Community corrections indicate that the community supports crime victims. Criminals leave victims of crime in deep pain of loss of property, loved ones, or inflict injuries on their body. The justice system ensures that offenders are arraigned in court and subjected to prison terms or communal services. The adoption of community related punishments for non-violent offenders shows direct support for crime victims (Finn, 2011). Crime victims believe that non-violent offenders should undergo rehabilitation as well as community based punishment to avoid recurrence of similar criminal activities. Community correction programs provide communities across the globe an alternative to imprisonment. Community leaders agree on punishments that one can undertake depending on the weight of the crime (UN, Economic and Social Council, 2004). Through these activities, crime victims feel that the community supports them fully. In addition, through community correction programs, the punishment that offenders undertake means that the offenders are held accountable, public safety is protected, community service increases, and victims of crime as well as local communities receive restitutions (Blomberg, 2006). The community also benefits through fees and other dues received by courts of justice under contractual agreements with employed offenders.
Community correction programs result in public confidence building in the judicial system. The judicial system should act in a transparent way to maintain public confidence. The judicial system remains the last resort where victims of crime seek justice (Guevara & Enver, 2009). The judicial system through the local courts ensures offenders are charged with regard to the crimes committed. Offenders are given the opportunity to defend the charges, but can be jailed or perform community based duties for a specified period. The period for undertaking communal services varies depending on the intensity of the crime. The judicial system consists but not limited to the police, sheriffs, defense lawyers, probation agents, prosecutors, juries, and officials in the administration of justice. Public confidence grows immensely if all officials in the line of administration of justice work in a transparent manner (Campbell, et al, 2009). In addition, community members would feel safe if they witnessed offenders undertaking various options of punishment within the community. The judges and other criminal justice officials visit the communities where offenders serve to ascertain that the offenders take the punishment seriously. These activities make community members feel that the administration of justice favors applies to all people especially those at the local level.
Advantages of Community Corrections
Community corrections ensure the creation of justice to the victims while correcting the offenders. Community corrections enhance the application of a uniform sentencing structure that gives offenders a variety of punishment options. Offenders are made to serve the community instead of serving jail terms and tedious work in incarceration facilities. The offenders can be integrated back to the community as they undertake the punishment (Wilkinson, 2010). If offenders chose to go to prison, they would have a hard time integrating into the community. In addition, community-based corrections ensure the offenders undergo probation, parole, and strict supervision processes. These programs help deliver justice to victims of crime in the affected communities. Community correction programs have the required capacity to solve minor cases without necessarily having the offenders serve jail terms (Blomberg, 2006). The correction programs help offenders change their behavior and adopt transfor...