Community Corrections

Community corrections are a range of alternative punishments for nonviolent offenders. There are two basic community corrections models in the United States. In the first model, integrated community corrections programs combine sentencing guidelines and judicial discretion with a variety of alternative punishment, parole, and probation options. In the second model, some states have put in programs in which correctional officials may direct already sentenced offenders into alternative sanction programs and parole and probation options. Both models are designed to help reduce prison overcrowding and are less expensive alternatives to prison. In the late 1980's, prison systems all over the country began experiencing serious overcrowding of their jails and prisons. The overcrowding served as a basis for lawmakers to come up with new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

In fact, Community correction programs provide many communities with local punishment options as an alternative to prison or jail. These sanction programs are lower cost alternatives to increased prison and jail construction, based on the cost per offender. They provide local courts, state departments of corrections, and state parole boards with a broad range of correctional options for offenders under their jurisdiction. The goal is to match the appropriate punishment with the crime. Community corrections programs are integrated sanctioning strategies that tries to achieve goals such as punishing the offender and holding them accountable, making sure the public is protected, making sure community service work increases, making sure that victims and local communities receive reinstitution from offenders who work in the jobs, and increasing the court costs and fees because of contract agreements with offenders who are still on their present job.

Continuing this further, community corrections can be very beneficial to the people who are on probation, in a sense that it gives them a second chance...