...Recidivism “America is the land of the second chance – and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life” former President, George W. Bush says. Is that statement true? Recidivism is just another word for repeat offender in crime. After sentences, they are tossed back out into the real world. Things may have changed, they can’t get jobs and can’t take care of themselves. Some are afraid to reach out for help. So what do they do? Some are lucky and find ways to stay out of trouble, but for the unlucky ones, they tend to repeat prior actions and are imprisoned again. Government officials have decided to take a stand, and decide to help repeating offenders better themselves with recidivism programs in prisons....
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...Annotated Bibliography: What the Literature Says About Juvenile Sex Offenders The following articles, factsheets, and studies have been compiled to assist attorneys and individuals working on behalf of youth charged with sexual offending. The information contained in these resources aim to help others realize the fundamental differences between adult sex offenders and juvenile sex offenders, which include positive responses of juveniles to treatment, low recidivism rates of juveniles and negative impact of registries on youth development. It is our hope that this information will be used to improve legal outcomes for juvenile sex offenders, and uphold the purpose of the juvenile justice system as a rehabilitative, not punitive, system. PUBLICATIONS BY TOPIC Recidivism Rates/Amenability to Treatment Judith V. Becker, What We Know About the Characteristics and Treatment of Adolescents Who have Committed Sexual Offenses, 3 CHILD MALTREATMENT 317, (1998). The author states that comprehensive data does not exist to support the notion that if adolescents commit one sexual offense, they will go on to develop a pattern of sexual-offending behaviors or develop a psychosocial disorder. Michael F. Caldwell et al., An Examination of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act as Applied to Juveniles: Evaluating the Ability to Predict Sexual Recidivism, 14 PSYCHOLOGY, PUBLIC POLICY AND LAW 89, (2008). This study compared 91 juvenile males who had been treated in a secure correctional...
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...One of utmost concern to policymakers, program administrators, practitioners and members of the public is sex offenders’ return to the community from incarceration. This is mostly attributed to the harm caused to victims and society when these individuals re-engage in similar or worse forms of crime. In the year 2006, the Congress enacted the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act which required that state sex offender registry be created and data collected from every state sent to a national database. The aim of this initiative was to provide important information to authorities as well as help protect members of the public and children to be specific who were often victims of sexual assault. This law has had its ups and down, for instance,...
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...counseling works or not, something has to be done to assist prisoners in order for them to lead a normal life upon their release. I will discuss some of the many programs offered by various states ranging from “Pets in Prison” to obtaining college degrees. I will explain the various types of counseling offered to sex offenders, pedophiles and murderers. Those are a few topics I feel should have special interest in the counseling/rehabilitation area. I am sure most would agree that prisoners should receive some type of counseling and rehabilitation, but where do you draw the line on the rehabilitation services offered? Should the money from taxpayers be used to fund certain types of programs, how does the prison system decide who gets to participate in which programs, and how can counselors and judicial boards ensure there will be no regression? Those are just a couple of questions that will be answered throughout my report. Structural Outline 1. Educational Services Offered 1a. Prison Entrepreneurship 2a. Prison Labor/computer repair program 2. Drug Rehabilitation 2a. Program Steps in detail for the Second Chance Program 3. Sex Offender Therapy 4. Alternative Programs to Prison Abstract This research paper will enlighten the readers of the many...
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...being structured. For the reason with the trends that started from the past into the current time happening, from the issues turning in to problematic situations. With the overpopulated jail and prison system and the shortage of finances, to keep the criminal justice system efficiency However, in the matter if they do not deal, with and discover an excellent solution to aid in this matter. Then will continue to make the criminal justice system of corrections inefficient. Future with the department of corrections, to be in question the concepts that looked at as answers to the problems are the Relapse Prevention Therapy treatment programs. In addition, restorative for the criminal justice department of corrections future, which being discuss with community activist, legislators. In addition, the administrators as they figure out the best methods that will correct, the distress also issues with the trends from the past in the current situations. With the past, the criminal justice system, department of corrections the political figures thought which taking a harsh tactics, to criminal committing criminal actions was a just thing to do. For the reason, recidivism would not lower with programs treatment, which is what they thought to be true this also thought of dropping the criminal actions nationwide also to secure society. It made the criminal that was committing any criminal action pay, for their criminal acts also to stop them from happing within society. Because...
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...DeAnna Tefke Placing the same level of punishment on adolescents and minors as we do on adults causes more harm than good. Instead of rehabilitating our younger generation for crimes they commit, we are hurting them by providing harsh punishments that they cannot come back from. The juvenile sex offender’s registry and notification laws are controversial and proponents of these laws feel they act as deterrents to future offending even though there is no evidence to support this claim. In many cases recidivism has decreased with the proper assessment and treatment. Our country has an overzealous sex crime legislation dating back to the 1880s. In the United States there are three types of legislation dealing with sex crimes. The first was pre-World War II when offenders were subjected to indefinite institutionalization and sterilization. These policies were jointly influenced by the fields of sexology and eugenics (Ordover, 2003). Sexologists promoted the view that minor forms of sexual misbehavior would predict future sexual violence and homicide (Jenkins, 1998), whereas eugenicists promoted the view that criminal behavior was genetically determined (Ordover, 2003). Both of these fields developed the view that sexual offending was considered intractable, resistant to change and escalating, therefore, new legislation was established to enact extreme interventions by institutionalization offenders. In order to keep society safe from future exposure and danger from an offender’s...
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...types of sexual offenders Sexual offenders are a major problem in today’s society. There has been an increasingly amount of research done in order to fully understand, and identify the types of sexual offenders. Researchers are trying to focus on finding types of treatments that could help sexual offenders. Since there are a lot of different types of offenders, building a treatment program is seen as a difficult task. Sexual offenders vary in terms of their characteristics, and their reasoning behind their acts. They are viewed as a heterogeneous group; which means that their types vary according to their characteristics. In order to help keep our society safe, it is important for us to understand the reason as to why sexual offenders commit the acts that they do. It is also important to understand the different types of treatments offered to sexual offenders, and if it reduces any risks of recidivism. This research paper will demonstrate ten different articles with ten very different analysis as to why sexual offenders offend, and what kind of treatment can be offered in order to reduce the chance of recidivism. Types of sexual offenders In order to fully understand this paper we first have to identify, and explain each typology of sexual offenders. What is a sexual offender? A basic definition of a sexual offender is someone who commits a sexual crime against someone. According to the encyclopedia of social and behavioural sciences “Sex offenders force another...
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...The subject of recidivism in the Criminal Justice System has been long studied. It has also been argued over as to the extent of its effectiveness. Recidivism is defined as the repeating of a negative action after experiencing negative consequences from that action or receiving treatment for that action. In regards to the criminal justice system, recidivism occurs when one is rearrested after serving a sentence. With this in mind, recidivism is only discovered when an arrest and or conviction has occurred. Therefore the true number of recidivism cases only covers reported cases. The question develops of just how does incarcerating criminals affect the rates of recidivism? As of mid 2008 there was approximately a population of 2,310,984 held in federal or state prisons or jails in the United States. Of these 1,540,805 were serving out sentences under federal or state jurisdiction. There was an increase of 509 from 506 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 United States residents from yearend 2007. This was an overall increase of 0.8% from the previous yearend. This was however less than the average increase of 2.4% annually for the years 2000 to 2007. (1) These numbers show the growth of the United States inmate population which leads to problems with overcrowding. Within the next year the Federal Bureau of Prisons will open three federal correctional institutions which can hold an approximate 10,500 federal inmates at maximum capacity. (2) According to a national study in 2003 showed...
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...Running Head: Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities Effectiveness of Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Juvenile Crime Kalah Jiggetts Criminal Justice Abstract This paper uses data on juvenile offenders released from correctional facilities in Florida to explore the effects of facility management type (private for-profit, private nonprofit, public state-operated, and public county-operated) on recidivism outcomes and costs. The data provide detailed information on individual characteristics, criminal and correctional histories, judge-assigned restrictiveness levels, and home zip codes—allowing us to control for the non-random assignment of individuals to facilities far better than any previous study. Relative to all other management types, for-profit management leads to a statistically significant increase in recidivism, but, relative to nonprofit and state-operated facilities, for-profit facilities operate at a lower cost to the government per comparable individual released. Cost- benefit analysis implies that the short-run savings offered by for-profit over nonprofit management are negated in the long run due to increased recidivism rates, even if one measures the benefits of reducing criminal activity as only the avoided costs of additional confinement. Since its beginnings in the mid-1980s, prison privatization in the United States has provoked several rounds of congressional hearings and hundreds of articles...
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...The U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of Justice Program states that more than 650,000 ex-offenders are released annually from a state or federal prison. The Department of Justice has implemented a re-entry program; this is when offenders make a transition from prisons and/or jails. The cost of housing an inmate in a federal or a state correctional facility is approximately $20,000 to $25,000 per year. The re-entry population consists all individuals that are returning to society who have been convicted of a criminal offense. These individuals have served time in a federal, state, or local level. Research outlines an effective correctional intervention maintains resources should focus on high risk offenders. Ex-offender are less likely to retain gainful employment, they are less educated, and they have a higher risk of substance abuse and mental health issues. Many of the prison reentry programs varies in methodology, range and scope; however, the best programs according to research are reentry programs that begin during incarceration phase and continues through the reintegrating phase. The United States government needs to be responsible for assisting ex-offenders in becoming a viable and successful candidate in society. These...
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...lacking the needs of offenders and programs to help them. Till now they have the same problem; however, they have been improving and meeting the needs of the offender’s population in a slow manner. Many incidents have occurred during prison time as well as after inmates have been released from prisons. Due to that Canadian corrections have slowly taken more time into their programs and treatments to help the inmates rehabilitate themselves and be able to get back into society in a better state than what they had arrived in. Overtime there have been many facilities available in order to help inmates with certain behavior issues and severe issues. In this paper I will be covering the different types of inmates and how each of them is treated with different programs. Incarceration rate has slowly been going down and there have been more treatment programs to help the offenders rather than just punishing them. Once again, in this paper, I will thoroughly explain how this is done with different types of offenders including; Women in gangs, impaired offenders, offenders who have been diagnosed with HCV (hepatitis C or AIDS), and sexual offenders. Not everyone will be getting treatments or put into programs in prison. Majority of the people are the ones who have a higher risk of danger when being put back into society; however, to prevent this, programs have been available in Canadian prisons. As you read on in this paper you will find out the different programs and how they treat the different...
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...moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.[1][2] A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media."[3] The media are key players in the dissemination of moral indignation, even when they do not appear to be consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety, or panic.[4]:16 Examples include the belief in widespread abduction of children by predatory pedophiles,[5] belief in ritual abuse by satanic cults of women and children,[6] scaremongering of the spread of AIDS,[7] and the War on Drugs.[8] Contents [hide] 1 Use as a social science term 1.1 British vs American 2 Characteristics 3 Examples 3.1 2000s: Human trafficking 3.2 1990s–present: Sex offenders 3.3 1980s–1990s: Satanic ritual abuse 3.4 1980s–1990s: Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 1980s–present: AIDS 3.6 1970s–present: Video games and violence 3.7 1970s–present: Crime increase 3.8 1970s–present: War on drugs 4 Criticism 5 Other 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Use as a social science term[edit] Marshall McLuhan gave the term academic treatment in his book Understanding Media, written in 1964.[9] According to Stanley Cohen, author of a sociological study about youth culture and media called Folk Devils and Moral Panics...
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...I am requesting your support in sponsoring or co-sponsor this holistic home detention monitoring bill. The criminal justice system has now realized long term prison terms do not result in assisting the goal of enhancing re-entry into the community. The Maryland General Assembly and Governor Hogan’s administration saw the correlation between criminal justice and the community and passed The Justice Reinvestment Act. However, this legislation failed to address the needs of non-violent offenders who still desperately require intensive rehabilitation services. The types of services which the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Service cannot provide given its fiscal and human resources constraints. By removing non-violent offenders from...
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...United States. Whether, the inmate is sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty. The facts in this research paper leans heavily in favor of life imprisonment as a cheaper form of punishment verses an inmate being sentenced to death row. The judicial system and politicians have formed several alternatives to assist our country with the ability to lower the cost of housing an inmate in our prison system. For example, the United States detaining systems are concentrating more on issuing a fair sentence to nonviolent offenders, such as, substance abusers and prostitutes. They realize that the majority of the inmates are in need of drug rehabilitation and have a mental illness. Also, the research shows that women offenders are the most affected with drug addiction and substance abuse. They also have the greater risk of recidivism and mental illness, due to, the drug addiction and substance abuse. The judicial system formed an alternative called “sex courts” to address the situation with female prostitutes. The alternative addressed the need of therapeutic rehabilitation (drug treatment and mental health counseling), instead of, incarcerating the...
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...Sex Offender Registries and Community Notification Laws: An Ethical Dilemma by Amy Thorson NW 62-OM OM 4803 - Organizational Ethics John Brown University June 2009 Situation Definition Introduction of the Facts Sex offenders in American society are often seen as repulsive, violent individuals that deserve to be feared and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Their crimes are deemed the worst kind of violation of another human being. In fact, “the vehemence of the hatred for sex offenders is unmatched by attitudes to any other offenders” (Logan, 1999). Many state and federal laws have been passed in an effort to protect the public from these predatory sex offenders. The laws are aimed specifically at registering sex offenders, documenting sex crimes, and disseminating this information to the general public. The Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act of 1994 requires that all states create registries for individuals convicted of sex crimes against children or any other sexually violent offense (Scholle, 2000). In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed Megan’s Law, which allows each state the discretion to establish criteria for registry disclosure, “but compels them to make private and personal information on registered sex offenders available to the public” (Klaas, 2008). Because many states depend on the federal government for funding of law enforcement programs, non-compliance with these requirements...
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