Correctional Reform Research Articles

Community psychology and correctional reform

Community psychology and correctional reform

Radical Correctional Reform: A Case Study of the Massachusetts Youth Correctional System

The authors raise three principal questions. First, what part should traditional training schools play in providing treatment for youthful offenders? Second, what is the relative effectiveness of community based in comparison to institutional treatment services for juvenile delinquents? Third, what problems arise in undertaking a radical change in policy and program from institution to community based services? To answer these questions, the Center for Criminal Justice at the Harvard Law School is evaluating the reforms undertaken by the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services since 1969. This article offers a preliminary report and description of the problems and progress of these reforms through three phases: the emergence of a mandate for reform, the reform of institutional treatment,and the move from institutions to community corrections. Interviews with staff and youth so far indicate a positive response of youth to the new programs.

A Critical Discussion of I.L.O. Report on Employment in Kenya (Review Article)

The recent I.L.O. Report on Employment in Kenya [1] has drawn considerable informal acclaim from a variety of sources including officials of the Kenya Government and of a number of donor agencies. This acclaim is unquestionably deserved, for the I.L.O. mission and its chiefs, Professors Hans Singer and Richard Jolly, accomplished, in just a few months, the seemingly impossible task of writing a highly readable report analysing problems in Kenya in terms and at a level of sophistication acceptable not only to the academic community but to donors and to the Government of Kenya as well. The purpose of this paper is to sound a discordant note and, I hope, a timely one. As this paper is being written, the Government of Kenya is in the process of concluding a lengthy and thoughtful analysis of the I.L.O. Report and of formulating a sessional paper on employment which provides not only an official response to the report but outlines the Government of Kenya's policies toward unemployment as well. Donor agencies, having adopted the report as near gospel on a number of Kenya's problems, anxiously await the sessional paper and positive action on the part of the Government which may generate some aid business and, not incidentally, contribute to corrective reforms.

Differential Treatment of Delinquents and Interpersonal Maturity Levels Theory: A Critique

The trend toward the use of diagnostic typologies in corrections is noted. The I-Levels (Interpersonal Maturity Levels) system employed in California is outlined in detail, including its applications to criminality. A number of questions are raised about the general validity of the theory, particularly as applied to offenders. In addition, several treatment projects are discussed in which this system has been utilized, with attention to limitations of these projects. In general, it is suggested that the results to date from the utilization of this framework in corrections are not encouraging. Finally, it is argued that correctional reform ought to be moving in a quite different direction from that of I-Levels.

Societal Crises–Strategies for Social Work Education

Rev. King questioned our system, raising doubts about our ideology, our methods, and our national style. He condemned policies and practices that belied our peace ful and democratic intentions, threatened the free and equal claim of our political and economic institutions, and denied many their dignity and self-respect. He warned those in seats of power to respond posi tively to just claims for the correction of social inequities. He believed that leaders who are unwilling or unable to do so, signal the approach of a state of crisis in the so ciety they lead. In garrisoning major population centers, deliberately subverting corrective reforms, substituting brawn for reason and control for concession, those who resist social change evidence the moral and political bankruptcy that threaten the social struc ture they defend. The assassination of a

The Rise of the Child-Saving Movement: A Study in Social Policy and Correctional Reform

Contemporary programs of delinquency-control can be traced to the enterprising reforms of the child-savers who, at the end of the nineteenth century, helped to create special judicial and correctional institutions for the labeling, processing, and management of "troublesome" youth. Child- saving was a conservative and romantic movement, designed to impose sanctions on conduct unbecoming youth and to dis qualify youth from enjoying adult privileges. The child- savers were prohibitionists, in a general sense, who believed in close supervision of adolescents' recreation and leisure. The movement brought attention to, and thus "invented," new categories of youthful misbehavior which had been previously unappreciated or had been dealt with on an informal basis. Child-saving was heavily influenced by middle-class women who extended their housewifely roles into public service and emphasized the dependence of the social order on the proper socialization of children. This analysis of the child-savers offers an opportunity to examine more general issues in cor rectional research: What are the dynamics of the popular and legislative drive to bring "undesirable" behavior within the ambit of the criminal law? What problems are caused by "agency-determined" research? What are the practical and policy implications of research on politically sensitive institutions?

Work—Release—a Study of Correctional Reform

Data on work-release prisoners are used to illustrate a concep tion of correctional reform as a process of accommodations and new relationships among groups. Reform stimulated by the correctional agency is viewed as preferable to reform externally induced. In North Carolina, changes in the economic base of the Prison Department motivated other agencies to support work- release as a new strategy. Although opportunism was prominent in the interest, the introduction of work-release initiated a series of accommodations resulting in changes that promise to be genuine reform. New relationships have emerged among the prisons, the parole board, the courts, and private employers. Within the prison, new relationships between staff and inmates support the growth of a motivational system conducive to rehabilitation. Current limitations of the North Carolina pro gram, successful when measured against its original goals, in clude the restricted place of work-release within the labor-force structure of the state. Further development of the work-release concept requires extension of vocational training and other rehabilitation programs in prison to broaden the job skills of prisoners as candidates for work-release.