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Trends In The Criminal Justice System

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The criminal justice system has become an ad hoc medical and social service delivery institution with more than eight million offenders under correctional control. Offenders have more physical, substance-abuse disorders, social and psychological deficits than the general population. According to Estelle versus Gamble, correctional institutions are required to provide reasonable care for all offenders who are incarcerated. Other issues such as psychological and social services have become a burden. A recent survey of prison administrators sheds light on the capacity of offenders that needed medical, psychological, and social services for offenders. The survey also dissected the analysis of the organizational factors that may affect whether an …show more content…

By reducing the number of low-risk parolees returning to prison for technical violations of their parole, intermediate sanctions can be implemented rather than a costly return to prison. This can reduce overpopulated prisons by several thousand. Public-private partnerships can also be used to address the cost-effectively of overcrowding problems. As a result, many states are adopting improved probation and parole programs with assessment tools. These reform programs allow state's policy to execute probation violations to result in immediate but small consequences, such as a two-day stay in jail. New technologies also present opportunities to use alternatives to incarceration, particularly for low-risk offenders. These alternative forms of supervision are usually a small fraction of the cost of incarceration. The use of Global Positioning System monitors, rapid-result drug tests, and ATM-like reporting kiosks offer authorities ways to monitor offenders without the high cost of locking them up. These new capabilities are giving judges and prosecutors confidence they can protect public safety with sanctions other than a costly prison

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