The Advantages and Disadvantages of Community Service or Social Service as Modes of Criminal Punishment.

Unlike jail or prisons, which create an expensive cycle of violence and crime, these alternatives actually prevent violence and strengthen communities. Community corrections programs provide

Community corrections is continually changing and has been for the past one hundred years. From the early to mid-twentieth century onward it has used three major models, the medical model, community model, and the crime control model. The major turning point for the American community corrections system that led to corrections as we know it today was in 1974 when What Works? - Questions and Answers About Prison Reform by Martinson was published. The system changed practically overnight across the nation. The notion of rehabilitating offenders was dismissed and a more punitive “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality took over. Presently the corrections system is still working in the crime control model, but professionals are trying to restructure how we deal with criminal offenders during and after incarceration. The difficulty in the restructuring is finding the balance between punishing criminal offenders proportionate to their crime, but also rehabilitating them to be productive members of society once they are released so that they do not recidivate.

Community justice broadly refers to different aspects of crime prevention and justice activities that include the quality of life as a goal for the community. Recent initiatives include community crime prevention, community policing, community defense, community prosecution, community courts, and restorative justice sanctioning systems. Community justice prioritizes different types of offenders to determine the sanctioning for the victims and to ensure the offender is ready to enter back into their community in good standing with no problems. In other words, they do not want them back in the community if they feel they have not learned their lesson or have been rehabilitated. Community justice’s main focus is to promote public safety and like I had said earlier to ensure that the quality of life of the community is in good standing. Community justice includes different ways of interpreting information about police, courts, and corrections that highlights problem-solving techniques. There is a strategy behind community justice such as including restorative justice practices and processes. They also include both adult and juvenile offenders to create a safer community rather than doing things for the offenders or actually to them. Community justice wants to prevent victimization to help establish public safety. It also places a high priority on the wants,

Should community service always fit the crime, or should these sentences be based on the needs of the community? Explain.

Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means

The criminal justice system approaches young offenders through unique policies to address the challenges of dealing with juvenile offending. They take special care when dealing with juveniles in order to stop them from repeat offending and stop any potential bad behaviour which could result in future. Juveniles have the highest tendency to rehabilitate and most adopt law-abiding lifestyles as they mature. There are several factors influencing juvenile crime including psychological and social pressures unique to juveniles, which may lead to an increase in juvenile’s risks of contact with the criminal justice system.

An option for Community Based treatment can be unpaid community service, which offers them an opportunity to pay back the communities they have victimized and offended. In addition to the community work, “Community work can help offenders make a fresh start in life. Offenders given work opportunities and skills are less likely to reoffend and many projects incorporate accredited training. Community work can increase offenders’ self-esteem and well-being and give their lives new purpose and direction” (Corrections, Prisons & Parole). As they work on themselves and pay their debt to society, they improve the environment in the communities and they free money in the budgets that are in place to pay for these services. When less money is spent on cleanup efforts, it leaves room for improvement in other social

The role of prison is supported by the fact that majority of inmates are serving short sentences with a smaller fraction serving life imprisonment and In fact, we have many cases of reformed prisoners who are outstanding members of the community.

Community corrections have more advantages over incarceration and fewer disadvantages. Incarcerating people isn’t working that well and the biggest reason is the overcrowding of prisons. According to a chart in Schmalleger’s book, “prisoners compared vs. capacity” there has been overcrowding of prisons since 1980. We are putting more people in prisons than how much capacity they can actually hold. Not

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

The United States is home to five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoner. There must be a change to the current prison system which is doing more harm than good in American society and must be reformed. Reasons for this claim are that American prisons are too overcrowded with inmates, which creates a dangerous and unhuman environment. The cost to run a prison has gotten too expensive for tax payer pockets, and lastly the prison system is more as a punishment instead of rehabilitation with about sixteen percent of inmates most serious offence being drug charges. Prisons fall short of reforming criminals and the government is obligated to completely reform the prison systems in the United States.

     The idea of sentencing a criminal for a period of time in a prison isn't working, so prisons should focus more on changing their rehabilitation programs. Life in prison should be like the outside world as much as possible, given the fact of imprisonment. Prisoners would be less prepared if the prison environment is artificial and abnormal compared to the outside world they will have to encounter later on. A prisoner also needs to keep family ties. Research in

Most findings indicate that punishment, deterrence, incapacitation and restitution are ineffective ways to reduce crime. It is noted that if the same resource monies could be redirected rehabilitation, the cost to the tax- payer would be reduced over time (Gertz et al, 2005). Rehabilitative programs are the most effective in reaching our ultimate goal of reducing crime and reducing future criminal behavior which is the purpose of incarceration. The problem with rehabilitation is that it is the most difficult to proof effective and even more difficult to persuade policy makers and community members to fund (Pinard, 2010). There are at

Punishment versus Rehabilitation, there has been many debates on the effectiveness of punishment compared to the effectiveness of rehabilitation of convicted offenders in prison and under community supervision. If an individual commits a crime serious enough to warrant incarceration, then the individual is sent to prison as a form of punishment.

Throughout time, the use of punishment has changed drastically. Not only has the actual infliction of punishment changed, the reasoning behind this punishment has also changed. There have been numerous scholars, educators, and researchers that have presented various theories on the reasoning behind societal punishment. Some of these theories are closely similar, however some are drastically different. It is important to note that these theorists have broad perceptions that can be rooted back to specific time periods throughout history. Societal punishment is defined as, “punishment being a complex social institution, shaped by the ensemble of social and historical forces and having a range of effects that reach well beyond the population of offenders” (Garland, 1991).