Chapter 1
Corrections: An Overview
Chapter Objectives
1. Describe the corrections explosion of the past 40 years, including the recent leveling
off of correctional populations.
2. Describe how crime is measured in the United States, and list the kinds of crimes that
cause people to enter correctional programs and institutions.
3. List and describe the various components of the criminal justice system, including the
major components of the corrections subsystem.
Chapter Outline
I. The Corrections Explosion: Where Do We Go Now?
One amazing fact stands out from all the contemporary information about
corrections: While serious crime in the United States consistently declined
throughout much of the 1990s, and while such declines continued into the first
decades of the 21st century, the number of people under correctional supervision in
this country—not just the number of convicted offenders sent to prison—continued
to climb, and only started to level off after 2010.
o Crime rates are approximately 20 percent lower today than they were in 1980.
o But the number of people on probation is up almost 300 percent since 1980, the
nation’s prison population has increased by more than 400 percent, and the
number of persons on parole more than doubled.
o Numbers like these show that we live in an era of mass incarceration, and the
provision of correctional services of all kinds has become a major strain on
, governments at all levels.
The question is, Why? Why did the correctional population increase so dramatically in
the face of declining crime rates?
o First, it is important to recognize that get-tough-on-crime laws, such as the
three-strikes (and two-strikes) laws that were enacted in many states in the
mid-1990s, fueled rapid increases in prison populations.
o A second reason correctional populations have rapidly increased can be found
in the nation’s War on Drugs.
o Third, parole authorities, fearing civil liability and public outcry, became
increasingly reluctant to release inmates.
o Fourth, as some observers have noted, the corrections boom created its own
growth dynamic.
As ever increasing numbers of people are placed on probation, the
likelihood of probation violations increases.
Prison sentences for more violators result in larger prison populations.
When inmates are released from prison, they swell the numbers of those
on parole, leading to a larger number of parole violations, which in turn
fuels further prison growth.
TIP: This is a good time for a class discussion or debate on the impact of the War on
Drugs and the get-tough-on-crime laws. Why do we have these policies? Are they
effective? Should we stop the War on Drugs? Is the euphemism appropriate? How can
we alter the current policies to eliminate or significantly reduce the distribution of
drugs in the nation?
A. Historical Roots of the Corrections Explosion
Census reports show an almost relentless increase in the rate of imprisonment
over the past 160 years.
Today, the rate of imprisonment in the United States is around 612 per 100,000
persons—close to an all-time high.
, B. Turning the Corner
State budgets have been hard pressed to continue funding prison expansion, and
the number of people behind bars began to show a slow decline beginning around
2010.
In order to reduce correctional expenditures even further, some states are using
forms of early release from prison, shortening time served, reducing the period of
probation or parole supervision, and shifting the responsibility of supervising
convicted offenders to county-level governments (and away from state
responsibility).
Recently, in her presidential address to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences,
Melissa Hickman Barlow outlined a plan for the implementation of sustainable
justice.
o Barlow defined sustainable justice as “criminal laws and criminal justice
institutions, policies, and practices that achieve justice in the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to have the benefits
of a just society.”
o Barlow’s call for affordable justice, based on principles and operating
practices that can be carried into the future without bankrupting
generations yet to come, represents an important turning point in the United
States’ approach to corrections and other justice institutions.
C. Correctional Employment
Estimates published by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in 2014 show
that a total of 761,355 government employees throughout the United States
worked in corrections, with a total monthly payroll exceeding $3 billion.
NIC also found that the average hourly and annual wage for correctional officers
and jailers was $20.94 and $43,550, respectively; for correctional first-line
supervisors wages were $29.31 and $60,970, respectively; and for probation
officers, it was $25.18 and $52,380, respectively.
New prisons mean jobs and can contribute greatly to the health of local economies.
II. Crime and Corrections
, The crimes that bring people into the American correctional system include felonies,
misdemeanors, and minor law violations that are sometimes called infractions.
Huge differences in the treatment of specific crimes exist among states.
A. Measuring Crime
Two important sources of information on crime for correctional professionals are
the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice
Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
Corrections professionals closely analyze these data to forecast the numbers and
types of correctional clients to expect in the future.
B. The Crime Funnel
The proportion of criminal offenders who eventually enter the correctional system
is small.
TIP: This is a good time for a discussion. Ask the students if they would report a crime if they
were the victims of the crime. Then, present different scenarios, and ask them if they would still
report the crime and how accurate they would be in their report. Talking through the
likelihood of discovering a crime, reporting it, investigating it, formally recording it, suspecting
a person of the crime, arresting the suspect, convicting the suspect, and sentencing the
offender to incarceration is important; it illustrates why such a small percentage of offenders
enter the correctional system.
III. Corrections and the Criminal Justice System
The components of the criminal justice system are (1) police, (2) courts, and (3)
corrections.
The process of criminal justice involves the activities of the agencies that make up the
Corrections: An Overview
Chapter Objectives
1. Describe the corrections explosion of the past 40 years, including the recent leveling
off of correctional populations.
2. Describe how crime is measured in the United States, and list the kinds of crimes that
cause people to enter correctional programs and institutions.
3. List and describe the various components of the criminal justice system, including the
major components of the corrections subsystem.
Chapter Outline
I. The Corrections Explosion: Where Do We Go Now?
One amazing fact stands out from all the contemporary information about
corrections: While serious crime in the United States consistently declined
throughout much of the 1990s, and while such declines continued into the first
decades of the 21st century, the number of people under correctional supervision in
this country—not just the number of convicted offenders sent to prison—continued
to climb, and only started to level off after 2010.
o Crime rates are approximately 20 percent lower today than they were in 1980.
o But the number of people on probation is up almost 300 percent since 1980, the
nation’s prison population has increased by more than 400 percent, and the
number of persons on parole more than doubled.
o Numbers like these show that we live in an era of mass incarceration, and the
provision of correctional services of all kinds has become a major strain on
, governments at all levels.
The question is, Why? Why did the correctional population increase so dramatically in
the face of declining crime rates?
o First, it is important to recognize that get-tough-on-crime laws, such as the
three-strikes (and two-strikes) laws that were enacted in many states in the
mid-1990s, fueled rapid increases in prison populations.
o A second reason correctional populations have rapidly increased can be found
in the nation’s War on Drugs.
o Third, parole authorities, fearing civil liability and public outcry, became
increasingly reluctant to release inmates.
o Fourth, as some observers have noted, the corrections boom created its own
growth dynamic.
As ever increasing numbers of people are placed on probation, the
likelihood of probation violations increases.
Prison sentences for more violators result in larger prison populations.
When inmates are released from prison, they swell the numbers of those
on parole, leading to a larger number of parole violations, which in turn
fuels further prison growth.
TIP: This is a good time for a class discussion or debate on the impact of the War on
Drugs and the get-tough-on-crime laws. Why do we have these policies? Are they
effective? Should we stop the War on Drugs? Is the euphemism appropriate? How can
we alter the current policies to eliminate or significantly reduce the distribution of
drugs in the nation?
A. Historical Roots of the Corrections Explosion
Census reports show an almost relentless increase in the rate of imprisonment
over the past 160 years.
Today, the rate of imprisonment in the United States is around 612 per 100,000
persons—close to an all-time high.
, B. Turning the Corner
State budgets have been hard pressed to continue funding prison expansion, and
the number of people behind bars began to show a slow decline beginning around
2010.
In order to reduce correctional expenditures even further, some states are using
forms of early release from prison, shortening time served, reducing the period of
probation or parole supervision, and shifting the responsibility of supervising
convicted offenders to county-level governments (and away from state
responsibility).
Recently, in her presidential address to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences,
Melissa Hickman Barlow outlined a plan for the implementation of sustainable
justice.
o Barlow defined sustainable justice as “criminal laws and criminal justice
institutions, policies, and practices that achieve justice in the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to have the benefits
of a just society.”
o Barlow’s call for affordable justice, based on principles and operating
practices that can be carried into the future without bankrupting
generations yet to come, represents an important turning point in the United
States’ approach to corrections and other justice institutions.
C. Correctional Employment
Estimates published by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) in 2014 show
that a total of 761,355 government employees throughout the United States
worked in corrections, with a total monthly payroll exceeding $3 billion.
NIC also found that the average hourly and annual wage for correctional officers
and jailers was $20.94 and $43,550, respectively; for correctional first-line
supervisors wages were $29.31 and $60,970, respectively; and for probation
officers, it was $25.18 and $52,380, respectively.
New prisons mean jobs and can contribute greatly to the health of local economies.
II. Crime and Corrections
, The crimes that bring people into the American correctional system include felonies,
misdemeanors, and minor law violations that are sometimes called infractions.
Huge differences in the treatment of specific crimes exist among states.
A. Measuring Crime
Two important sources of information on crime for correctional professionals are
the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice
Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
Corrections professionals closely analyze these data to forecast the numbers and
types of correctional clients to expect in the future.
B. The Crime Funnel
The proportion of criminal offenders who eventually enter the correctional system
is small.
TIP: This is a good time for a discussion. Ask the students if they would report a crime if they
were the victims of the crime. Then, present different scenarios, and ask them if they would still
report the crime and how accurate they would be in their report. Talking through the
likelihood of discovering a crime, reporting it, investigating it, formally recording it, suspecting
a person of the crime, arresting the suspect, convicting the suspect, and sentencing the
offender to incarceration is important; it illustrates why such a small percentage of offenders
enter the correctional system.
III. Corrections and the Criminal Justice System
The components of the criminal justice system are (1) police, (2) courts, and (3)
corrections.
The process of criminal justice involves the activities of the agencies that make up the
