U.S. Correctional System Correctional Systems Are Much

U.S. correctional system

Correctional systems are much essential in curbing out acts of crimes. The main purposes of correctional systems are to punish, rehabilitate the offenders and protecting the population. The big question is that do the modern U.S. correctional systems achieve their aims? The question came about because it was realized that individuals who came out of prison after completing their sentence changed to be worse in performing crime as compared to before. However, the law has tried to reduce or stop the rate of crime considerably through correctional systems. Correctional systems fulfill their duty of punishing the offenders by engaging in the following measures:

Basic probation: This is the commonly used community-based punishment within the United States. It is whereby an offender lives at home but at the same time he or she is being monitored. This may be through keeping of daily log of the activities of this individual or meeting with a supervisor in a given number of times in a month. Intensive Supervision Probation (ISP): This form of punishment gives the offender the opportunity to stay at home though under relatively severe restrictions. The offender is supposed to perform community service, attend treatment programs or school, have a meeting with probation officer like five times in a week.

Community service: This can be used alone or in line with other penalties and services. This offender is always assigned to work for private nonprofit agencies or government. It can be painting of churches, collecting roadside trash, renovate schools or nursing homes and maintaining parks. Restitution and Fines: These are forms of monetary penalties. Restitution is whereby the offender is suppose to compensate his or her victim, while fines is whereby a set of amount is suppose to be paid to the court or both by the offender. The amount which is to be paid depends on the crime and may be on the ability of the offender to pay. The intension of this penalty is for the purpose of compensating victims for their losses and at the same time the offender is being taught financial responsibility.

Day Reporting: This is where the offender has to report daily to a center within the community, the offender files a daily schedule indicating the way he or she is going to spend every hour, which could be at work, at support group meetings or in class. Prisons and Jails: An offender with a serious offence serves their time within state or federal prisons; county jails are meant to hold inmates for shorter periods, Currie, Elliott, (1998). There is category of prison and jails which is according to security level and is different as per the types of activities as well as programs they offer for prisoners. Some other forms of punishment are boot camps, drug courts among others.

Offenders can also be rehabilitated on the other hand through: Educational and work programs: The two highly extensively used modes of treatment in prisons of America are education and work programs, Gendreau, Paul (1996). These programs' prevalence reflects the abiding belief that educational and work skills as well as the good habits learned during acquisition of the skills, tend to be integral to securing employment as well as being a productive citizen. Even though the result are not unequivocal, the research which exist generally indicate that the programs do posses a modest impact in reducing post release recidivism, more so when targeted at a given inmates.

Psychological/counseling programs: This are also programs that assist in rehabilitation. They tend to furnish inmates with skills so that they can live productively in the community. Some other programs within prisons try to change the underlying problem that has been caused, or implicated in the criminality of the offender. The common interventions are drug abuse programs; this is because most of the offenders are found to have used drugs within the month before they are arrested.

Community- based treatment: This can be another way of rehabilitating the offenders, the inmates who are returning to the community are being put on parole or mandatory supervised release and they become monitored by parole officers. Sometimes it can be through probation, the offenders are not sentenced to prison but are put on probation and are monitored by probation officers. Many of the states probation are centralized making them to be state function while if probation is decentralized, it becomes administered by local jurisdictions like counties and cities, Cullen, Francis T. And Gendreau, Paul (2000).

Most of the states have been weighing on which is the best option to apply. Majority support that any individual who has been involved in the act of crime should be punished but not rehabilitated. Punishment is always the most effective way of reducing crime rate because it makes justice to be done. It satisfy the party who has been done to crime to feel that his problem has been solved while the person who has committed crime learns that it is wrong and not accepted to engage in crimes. Rehabilitation should just be applied in not serious crimes or after the offenders has served his or her punishment.