Alternatives to Incarceration Essay - 876 Words

Alternatives to Incarceration Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders. Unlike jail or prisons, which create an expensive cycle of violence and crime, these alternatives actually prevent violence and strengthen communities. Community corrections programs provide†¦show more content†¦Some of the conditions may be a requirement for employment, school, or community service hours. These conditions must be met to satisfy the sanction, if they are not met the offender would be in violation and sent to jail or prison. Another commonl y used alternative is house arrest and confinement. This sanction restricts an individual to his or her residence for specific periods of time; in most house arrest programs offenders are allowed to leave their homes only for employment, medical needs, or mandated assignments such as community service or school. The emphasis of this program is on confinement, and the supervising officers’ role is to ensure that the offender stays confined at home. There are three different levels of home confinement, each with a different degree of restricted freedom. The first is curfew which requires offenders to be in their residence during limited, specific hours, generally at night. The offender’s movements outside of the curfew hours are unregulated. The second is home detention that requires offenders to remain at home at all times except for employment, education, treatment, or other pre-approved activities. This program may be with the assisted with electronic monitoring. The last level is home incarceration. This program requires offenders to remain at home at all times, with very limited exceptions for religious or medical purposes. At a minimum, offenders are subject to randomShow MoreRelatedAlternative to Incarceration Essay894 Words   |  4 PagesDecember 5, 2001 Alternatives to incarceration Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasnt until the late 1980s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakersRead MoreAlternatives to Incarceration Essay1984 Words   |  8 Pagesdata, along with Chi-square analysis. A logistic regression model was also used in this study. 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IntermediateRead More Home Confinement: An Alternative to Incarceration Essay949 Words   |  4 PagesConfinement: An Alternative to Incarceration      Ã‚   West Virginia state prisons have a maximum capacity of 2,154 inmates; currently they house 2,363 inmates, and more remain in City and County lockups to manage the overflow (West Virginia Blue Book). Home Confinement solves this problem. Reduction of the prison population should be reason enough to institute home confinement, but other reasons do exist. Would you like lower taxes? Home confinement costs much less than incarceration. Do you favorRead More America Needs Alternatives to Incarceration Essay2835 Words   |  12 Pagescaught and sentenced to serve 1 year in the County Prison. Clyde never wanted to do it and was very uncomfortable doing it, but he thought it would help his family and allow them to go one more month with food on the table. Even though there are alternative forms of rehabilitation that would have kept him out of prison and been more beneficial to him and his family as well as being more cost efficient, Clyde was sent to prison to become part of the l argest prison population in the world. Read MoreThe Benefits of Community-Based Alternatives to Incarceration2170 Words   |  9 Pageslow-risk offenders to keep them from clogging up the cells in jails and soaking up unnecessary tax money? Well, the only true way to eliminate a growing prison population is to discuss, analyze, and apply prison alternatives as possible criteria for sentencing, as well as rehabilitation. Alternatives such as probation, parole, and community service will help keep prison populations at bay and within a manageable rate. In addition, tax dollars can be utilized for another issue, while low-risk criminal offendersRead More Community Based Corrections: Viable Alternative to Incarceration1679 Words   |  7 Pagesprocess. Community-based corrections facilities are located in the community and support diverse rehabilitative programs including restitution, community service and repayment of monetary fines (Moses, 2007). Community-based correction is not incarceration; there is accountab ility, responsibility and supervision with graduation within nine and twenty four months of enrollment (Honarvar, 2010). Probation, day reporting and house arrest, which use global positioning satellite tracking devices, are