Criminal Justice Trends: Corrections

Criminal Justice Trends: Corrections

J.J. Myers

CJA484

March 3, 2014

D.R. Mailloux

Criminal Justice Trends: Corrections

The relationship between the criminal justice system and society has always been up and down. Some individuals think that the system needs to be overhauled, and some that think the system is doing well and does not need to be replaced. In some areas of policing, policies have led to corruption and substandard policing practices. The first drastic change that we seen in the way the system was going to police the public placed all offenders behind bars. In today’s criminal justice system, with the increasing numbers of offenders, the system is going to have to find away to reduce the prison population. Modern day policing has implemented new policies that have changed the way the system handles offenders. These policy changes have led to a mixture of how policing should be conducted.

Past trends of Corrections

In the beginning of the criminal justice system, the relationship between the police and the citizens was simple. Individuals who committed crimes in society got punished, offenders where locked way in prison and they were forgotten. According to Blakly and Bumphus, “It was during the reform era (beginning in the 1930s), under the direct tutelage of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that professionalism and technology began to become paramount” (1999, p. 1). A commission of America’s leaders in the criminal justice system from prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, state and federal judges, social workers, probation officers, prison administrators, and others occupied in the criminal justice was formed in 1929.

The commission was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to address to discuss important issues facing the criminal justice system. The “National Commission on Law Observation and Enforcement”, or more widely named Wickersham Commission, for the commission’s first chairperson George W. Wickersham. With the...