Options to Community Supervision
Community supervision allows a convicted criminal defendant to serve their sentence in the community (Drake, 2018). Community correction officers are responsible for supervising and monitoring the actions of offenders. The opportunity to serve their sentence in the community enables offenders to be with their families, engage in some constructive work to support their families, and to participate in other services in the city (Petersilia, 2001 as cited in Drake, 2018). Community supervision provides a better opportunity for positive reinforcement; in learning new skills and making behavioral changes, offenders are likely to respond better and maintain learned behavior for more extended periods.
There are four supervision strategies to supervision include:
Intensive Supervision With and Without Treatment
This option entails monitoring and surveillance and enforcing offender compliance with conditions of control.
Risk- Need-Responsivity ( RNR) Supervision
RNR acts as a correctional model employed by correctional officers in engaging offenders to develop prosocial skills ( Andrews & Bonta, 2010, as cited in Drake, 2018).
Swift and Certain
This strategy employs sanctions as a consequence for offenders who violate the conditions of their supervision (Drake, 2018).
Swift, Certain, and Fair (SCF)
A violation of behavior is met with sanctions immediately and must be proportional to the breach of action (Drake, 2018)
Advantages of Community Corrections
Community corrections programs oversee offenders outside of jail or prison and are administered by agencies or courts with the legal authority to enforce sanctions. Community corrections include probation, correctional supervision within the community rather than jail or prison, and parole, a period of conditional, supervised release from prison (“Community Corrections,” n.d.). Probation served as a first release mechanism to alleviate overcrowded prisons and move people from jail to the community to improve the possibility of rehabilitation. The general organization of the prison may give the option for community correction preference; the lack or inadequate capacity of prison to offer recovery to drug users; new entrants cannot receive training or skills of benefit to their reentry into the community
Moving towards community corrections is informed by evidence-based studies, according to Still, Broderick and Raphael (2016), “community corrections are likely to be more effective in the long run, less socially harmful and even cheaper.” A growing concern regarding the effectiveness of prison as a crime control tool has weighed in how community correction can contribute to the overall criminal justice system. Since the prison tends not to focus on recidivism but a more prolonged period of incarceration to act as a future deterrent, community corrections aim at rehabilitation to reduce the criminal activities of offenders and delinquents after serving parole term. The U.S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice emphasized the importance of keeping the offender in the community to combat potentially detrimental effects of incarceration and to foster the advantages of maintaining contact with family and social institutions that might be constructive influences ( Mackienzie & Lattimore, 2018).
Community corrections afford the persons under supervision the opportunity to interact with law enforcers more frequently. This interaction can have a positive impact on the behavior of the offenders. Community corrections minimize collateral consequences associated with a criminal conviction. Integration for those on community correction becomes easy due to reduced bias on employments and the general character of an individual.
community corrections and treatment providers use assessment instruments to identify offenders’ criminogenic traits; treatment providers provide program listings that identify the criminogenic needs their services address and avoid one-size-fits-all programs; cognitive-behavioral services utilized; community corrections refer offenders to applications based upon the match between offenders’ needs and programs’ services
Disadvantages of Community Corrections
Challenges facing community corrections pertain to the fact that, unlike incarceration, the efficacy of community corrections may depend on the number of offenders who display positive behavior change with minimal chances of a repeat offense. Achieving an effective community correction program requires an elaborate infrastructure comprising skilled probation and parole officers, adequate resources to handle reintegration, and community intervention mechanisms.
Firstly, rules that individuals under supervision must abide by are extensive, often unclear, and can be arbitrarily enforced, a route to mass incarceration (Williams et al., 2019; as cited in Corbett 2015; Doherty 2016). Breaking any of these rules can be grounds for probation or parole officers to revoke supervision, leading to incarceration. Such revocations are a way in which community correction supervision can scale up cases of imprisonment (William et., 2019).
Secondly, fines and fees have turned out to be a burden to those on community correction, therefore, creating a dislike between the parole and probation officers and the people under supervision (Martin et al., 2017, as cited in William et al., 2019). Further, William et al. (2019) opine that “fees saddle people on probation or parole. Many jurisdictions impose a monthly fee for being under community corrections supervision, with additional conditions such as drug and alcohol tests or electronic monitoring carrying their monthly fees…pay can also be grounds for reincarceration or extension of surveillance.”
Lastly, when there are high increases in the number of those under supervision, the caseloads lead to inadequate and poor integration into the community. Such cases of the inadequacy of financial resources interfere with the general operation of community corrections in regards to monitoring and enforcement. Inadequate resources may prove disastrous when fighting recidivism at the same time (William et al., 2019). Community correction is the most preferred alternative to incarceration.
In conclusion, in considering the impact that incarceration may have on an individual’s perception in the community, community corrections offer a better option in the criminal justice system. Effective community corrections should aim at striking a mechanism for reintegrating offenders back to the community; this can affect through the active intervention of probation and parole officers with community institutions on behalf of the offenders. Probation and parole officers must be ready to practice evidence-based supervision, use technology to provide treatment services and to create an information system that guides on the development, monitoring and evaluation of the intervention ( Mackienzie &Lattimore, 2018)
References
Drake, E. (2018). The Monetary Benefits and Costs of Community Supervision. Journal Of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 34(1), 47-68. doi: 10.1177/1043986217750425
MacKenzie, D., & Lattimore, P. (2018). To Rehabilitate or Not to Rehabilitate. Criminology & Public Policy, 17(2), 355-377. doi: 10.1111/1745-9133.12364
Still, W., Broderick, B., & Raphael, S. (2016). Building Trust and Legitimacy Within Community Corrections. New Thinking in Community Correction Bulletin. Washington, D.C: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 2016. NCJ 249946. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/
Williams, J., Schiraldi, V., & Bradner, K. (2019). The Wisconsin Community Corrections Story. Columbia University, Justice Lab.