...Prison Life and Recidivism Karen Cavanagh CRJ303: Corrections Instructor: Gary Gonzales September 19, 2011 Prison Life and Recidivism Prison recidivism is a problem in the United States, resulting in prison overcrowding. As the government struggles to address the conditions in prisons, researchers have begun to look at alternatives to incarceration. These alternatives can result in lowering crime, recidivism and the prison population. The numbers of people in the United States spending time in prison and the amount of time people are spending is an enormous problem and cost for every state (Langan & Levin, 2002). Prisons correctional role is mainly formed from the special strict environment where sentenced people are placed for a certain period of time. The difference in life conditions, that are stricter, more formal as well as restricted, forces on the sentenced person and has a correctional and educational function on his consciousness of a person. Prisoners have less freedoms and rights than those who are out of prison. They are forced to obey the rules of the correctional facility that includes a strict scheduled daily life, limit time for outside activities out of the cells, limited access to visitors and limited time of the visits. Prisoners in the United States have a shorter period of time for visitors to visit prisoners compared to other countries. The life of prisoners in the correctional institutions is based on the authoritarian regime of the prison’s...
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...Mark Lipsey preformed a study on offenders to see which methods of intervention work best to decrease recidivism rates. The cognitive behavioral approach showed a 26% decrease in recidivism compared to other groups (like a 22% recidivism decrease with the behavioral method, a 5% decrease with individual therapy, and a 12% decrease with meditation). The cognitive behavioral model showed the greatest decrease found in the study (Lipsey, 2009, pg. 19). Such a decrease is a big step in the right direction and hopefully in time there will be more studies to see what else can be paired with CBT to further decrease recidivism rates. In addition to decreased recidivism rates, cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for with both juveniles and adults, offenders who abuse substances and have violent tendencies, as well as probationers, parolees, and inmates. This is incredibly valuable information because probation and parole officers deal with such a variety of clients based on age, substance abuse, violence, and their backgrounds (Clark, 2010). It is extremely important to be aware that there is a counseling method that is known to be successful in all these different categories. The reason being is that many of the clients a probation or parole officer will come in contact with on a daily basis are of various ages, come from many different backgrounds, have substance abuse related...
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...Ex-convicts do not live an easy lifestyle in prison, however, when they reenter society, they have even bigger struggles to face. In the outside world ex-convicts do not face the intimidation of other convicts, but rather disrespectful and pessimistic attitudes from employers. Ex-convicts are immediately judged and labeled based off of their rap sheet. What these employers seem to forget is that, these ex-convicts are people trying to make a living as well. Jeremy Travis, President of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, and Christy A. Visher, Director of The Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies (CDAS) at the University of Delaware, performed a study on prisoners and their needs to adapt back into society with more ease. In their article, Travis and Diaz 2 Visher touched upon the previously mentioned idea, “Individuals returning home from prison have been shaped by their offending and substance abuse histories, their work skills and job histories, their mental and physical health, their prison experiences, and their attitudes, beliefs, and personality traits.” (Travis, Visher pg 91) Travis and Visher are not specifically referring to employers, but that is where most discrimination on ex-convicts occurs simply from the section on the work application that asks if one has ever had any trouble with the law. Any person who has to check that box must feel discouraged in some way. One may argue that having an ex-convict in their work place will cause uneasy tensions...
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...Microsoft | What Are the Options? | A Study of Recidivism among our Youth | | | December 4, 2012 | | Abstract In this paper I will be going over the study of our neighborhoods impact on criminals primarily focusing on the reentry rate. Also known as Recidivism When exploring such, there are key issues we must pay close attention to, and that’s the group that’s impacted the most- young black males. Secondly we must review the recidivism rate and how they play a role on the neighborhoods where prisoners return. Third we will determine whether race plays a role in certain areas where the recidivism rates are increasing. Lastly we will discuss several implications that could possibly reduce these rates. Introduction: A criminal career is a sequence of offenses during a period of an individual’s life. This repetitive criminal behavior is called recidivism, and indicates the proportion that becomes involved in criminal behavior, at what age criminal behaviors begins, how long the criminal career lasts and the number of offenses typically committed during the course of the career (Farrington, 1992) Also defined as an estimate of the percentage of released prisoner who commit another offense. There are three different measures of recidivism according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. These are rearrests, reconviction, and reincarceration. Rearrests is described as any arrest that was reported to state identification bureau after release from a correctional...
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...Prison Downsizing Implementation in New York State Darlene R. Muller Policy Implementation: Spring 2013 New York State has been in financial crisis for a long time. Numerous plans, policies and budget cuts have been proposed and enacted to attempt to save money, and no public service or government agency has been overlooked. One of areas where most attention is drawn is to the corrections system. A large portion of New York’s budget is spent on housing, supervising, and rehabilitating inmates. There are many who believe this is wasteful, but what is the solution to the dilemma? Public safety must be ensured, as well as the rights the inmates and accused are entitled to. There are two sides to this problem. There are vast amounts of money spent upon this system, however it also is one of the main sources of employment for those located in the areas that contain these facilities. The loss of jobs and revenue within these areas must be comparable to the savings involved. There is no question policy changes must be made, as the prison population continues to grow and budget constraints are an issue in every state. As policies are enacted to become tougher on crime, the need for corrections services increases. Legislation and policy change has had some success in other states. Kansas had an overwhelming problem with prison population and budget restraints throughout the last few decades. (Rengifo, 2010) At first, with increased prison capacity, in the 1980’s, Kansas...
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...- Identifying offenders for residential placement and increasing the effectiveness of correctional programming through the residential placement Hypothesis: - Significant and substantial differences in the effectiveness of programming will be found on the various risk levels. Sample: - This study involved an experimental and a comparison group. - The experimental group included offenders released from a state institution, on parole, post-release control (PRC), or transitional control2 and placed in a halfway house (HWH), or offenders sentenced to community-based correctional facilities (CBCF).3 The total number of offenders in the experimental group was 7,366; 3,629 were in the CBCF group, and 3,737 were in the HWH group. - These offenders...
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...isolation, segregation and detachment of the elements of a company defining the basis of citizenship. Although individuals often returning to the community focus more on the choice of where they dwell, their long-term success in society is more likely to be dependent on the social roles they have chosen to play, to the extent that they will engage in the community and they have been prepared for this purpose during their incarceration or institutionalization. Reentry can help reduce recidivism as well as assist those who have been previously incarcerated to begin leading law abiding lives once released into society. However, overtime the importance of prisoner reentry has been drastically lowered with less emphasis on helping those to prepare for their release and with post release community integration. As a result, the shortage of reentry programs and limited responsibility of probation or parole to assist in re-entry; the rate at which people return to prison or jail is high. Keywords: reentry, recidivism, institutionalization Re-Entry and Its Effects: Institutional and Post Release Those who are incarcerated do not only serve time inside their prison cell, they also serve time once...
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...offenders who are approved for release by community corrections boards, formerly known as Parole Boards (Begg&Tasmania). A level of Supervision Inventory (LSI) assessment for risk and needs are required on each offender before a final decision to release is made as a safety precaution to the communities (Howard, John, 2002). C. Why were the programs created? Like most community-base correctional programs , halfway house were designed to contribute to the reduction of prison and jail overcrowding and is considered a cost saving component compared to traditional correctional system(Howard,john,2002). According to the Colorado, Department of Public Safety, halfway house were created for felons who need more treatment and supervision than those on probation but less confinement than prisoners. PURPOSE OF HALFWAY HOUSE PROGRAMS A. The objective of Halfway House Programs The main goal of Halfway House programs is to protect the community’s well-being by reducing recidivism (Marion, 2002), strengthening neighborhoods, enforcing social justice, and creating a better and safer place for the residents to live (Gilbert, Settles, 2007). B. What are the programs designed to accomplish? The offender is expected to apply for and maintain employment, pay for room and board, go to school, or attend rehabilitative treatment programs (Bonta, Motiuk, 1985). Once the offender is granted full parole while at a halfway house, they are eventually allowed...
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...evidence-based practices in community corrections effectively manage offenders without compromising safety? To be able to meet this challenge it requires correction leaders to the use the most effective resources and focus on giving services that prove to reduce offender recidivism. Some examples of community corrections are parole and probation. Both systems watch convicted offenders and sometimes use the same sanctions and rehabilitation programs, but work differently. For instance, offenders on probation serve their sentencing in the community instead of being incarcerated. On the other hand, an offender on parole served time in prison but was granted to be let out in the community; due to maybe good behavior or time served expired. As policy makers now focus to have community- based corrections, probation agencies are stepping up to the plate as a leader. Probation higher ups are having the challenge to help lower these pressures by handling the growing number of offenders within the community. Instead of sending these offenders to prison, we can use this new program but still need to try to maintain the safety of public. Researcher studies have shown that criminal justice agencies can really reduce offender recidivism by implementing a series of evidence based practices. Evidence practices are programs or tests proven to have positive outcomes through research and have consistent good patterns of results. This is called an...
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...includes probation – correctional supervision within the community rather than jail or prison – and parole – a period of conditional, supervised release from prison. However, other types of community corrections, like electric monitoring programs, day report programs, and halfway houses are also coming into effect. These other programs can be a part of probation or even stand alone programs. Probation is one of the largest community corrections, it is a court-ordered period of conditional supervision in the community. In some cases, probation can be a combined sentence of incarceration followed by a period of community supervision. People who violate probation are usually sent to prison (they go through another court date, and the judge decides whether they have to go to prison or a more serious community corrections program). Once set to prison, the person is now an inmate; however, if the inmate is behaving well in prison, they can go before a parole board and be released from prison to serve the remainder of their time on parole. Parole is different from probation. Parole is release from prison under certain specific conditions to serve the remainder of the sentence, it is not court imposed, and the parolee agrees to supervision conditions. Once a person loses their probation, he or she becomes part of the corrections system, the parole board is in the position that grants parole, and sets the rules and circumstances...
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...Rehabilitation Name Institution’s name Introduction Recidivism is a term derived from the Latin word recidivus which means recurring, as well as the term recido meaning to fall back. This term is essentially used to illustrate an individual who has repeated an undesirable behavior after which they have already been treated, trained to stop the behavior or have already suffered the repercussions of that behavior. (Rainer, 2013) Furthermore, it is used in the field of criminal justice describing inmates who have been released, then rearrested or reconvicted. There are four correctional models that have been implemented to help reduce cases of recidivism. They include: * Medical treatment model which refers to medical intervention prescribed medication aiming at reducing recidivism by reducing biological, biological impulses that led to a particular crime. * Rehabilitation model which is based on assumptions that criminal activity or behavior is caused by some factors. * Community model is whereby released inmates are kept under parole in their society whereby they do community service. * Retribution as a form of correction that focuses on evaluating the weight of the crime and it considers punishment proportional to the crime committed. * Justice model limits itself in the administration of punishment appropriate to severity of the crime committed and leads to imprisonment. Rehabilitation This is any measure taken with an aim of changing the offender’s...
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...Phoenix | Parole and Truth in Sentencing | CJS/200-Foundations of the Criminal Justice System | | Roy Burgess II | 3/30/2014 | The parole system is an integral part of the U.S. criminal justice system. The functions of parole are closely tied to the laws regarding truth in sentencing. The focus of this paper is to outline the concepts related to the parole system and the intent of the truth in sentencing laws. | The early release of an inmate from a correctional facility is defined as parole. The goal of parole is to provide a means for an inmate to gradually reenter society and lead a productive life. There are two types of parole, discretionary parole and mandatory parole. An inmate that is eligible for discretionary parole must go before a parole board to show that they are no longer a threat to society and that they are capable of beginning to rebuild their lives and becoming a productive member of society. Mandatory parole is determined by the sentencing guidelines and is not under the control of the parole board. After an inmate has served a predetermined amount of time according to sentencing, they are automatically released from custody. Both forms of parole have specific conditions that must be followed and failing to do so could result in the individual returning to prison. The conditions of parole vary according to the jurisdiction, but they also share some of the same restrictions and requirements. One condition that is common under parole is the...
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...Rehabilitation Name Institution’s name Introduction Recidivism is a term derived from the Latin word recidivus which means recurring, as well as the term recido meaning to fall back. This term is essentially used to illustrate an individual who has repeated an undesirable behavior after which they have already been treated, trained to stop the behavior or have already suffered the repercussions of that behavior. (Rainer, 2013) Furthermore, it is used in the field of criminal justice describing inmates who have been released, then rearrested or reconvicted. There are four correctional models that have been implemented to help reduce cases of recidivism. They include: Medical treatment model which refers to medical intervention prescribed medication aiming at reducing recidivism by reducing biological, biological impulses that led to a particular crime. Rehabilitation model which is based on assumptions that criminal activity or behavior is caused by some factors. Community model is whereby released inmates are kept under parole in their society whereby they do community service. Retribution as a form of correction that focuses on evaluating the weight of the crime and it considers punishment proportional to the crime committed. Justice model limits itself in the administration of punishment appropriate to severity of the crime committed and leads to imprisonment. Rehabilitation This is any measure taken with an aim of changing the offender’s...
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...Geyer (2009) provided a case study of Sandy Lee was sentence to prison for trafficking cocaine, as a result she was mandated at to a residential treatment program transitioning to a lower level of care outpatient treatment. While attending both programs she participates in group and individual sessions addressing her domestic violence which she experienced by her past boyfriends. Additionally, Ms. Lee sought treatment to address her mental health diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) which she was prescribed antidepressants. Ms Lee also resided in transitional housing which she would present to her probation officer for random urine drug screens. Over the month Ms. Lee was able to obtain gainful employment, stable housing and regain custody of her children. However, Ms. Lee violated her probation after testing positive on a random urine drug screen (Geyer, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to discuss treatment outcomes models: recidivism model, relapse model, and harm-reduction model. The recidivism, relapse, and harm-reduction model have in common are they are used in forensic treatment literature (Geyer,...
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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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