Chapter 4

Corrections and community justice

Compared to law enforcement and the courts, the correctional function has been a
latecomer to community justice. As Chapter 3 indicated, community-oriented policing
activity has a long history but did not become a core aspect of American policing until
the 1980s; community-based courts have had a long tradition in America, but the
community court movement did not gather momentum until the early 1990s.
Corrections, by contrast, has begun to embrace community justice ideas only very
recently.

Correctional operations are generally grouped into two types: (1) institutional
corrections and (2) field-service corrections. Institutional corrections encompass jails
(usually locally run by the city or county and where defendants await the disposition
of their cases or serve short sentences of incarceration), prisons (usually run by states
and where offenders serve longer-term sentences), and federal penitentiaries (where
offenders convicted of usually more serious federal crimes serve the terms of their
sentence). In contrast, field-service corrections usually encompass two sorts of
activities carried out by two types of agencies. Probation is a nonincarcerative form of
community supervision that is often understood as an alternative to jail (in some
jurisdictions, a probation sentence is termed a suspended jail sentence). Parole is a
form of community supervision that is meant to monitor the reintegration of offenders
into their home communities as they return from prison.

This late arrival of the corrections field to the community justice arena is
understandable, yet also ironic. It is understandable because to most people, the
correctional functions call forth the imagery of prison and jail, and these seem to have
a problematic relationship to everyday community life. Yet there is an irony because
the most commonly used forms of corrections occur in the community (probation,
parole, and community corrections), and these aspects of correctional activity would
seem to be naturally related to the ideals of community justice. As we will see,
correctional activity has a historical focus on individual offenders that makes a
community justice orientation difficult to sustain, and this is as true for community as
for institutional correctional strategies.

Even though correctional leaders have come late to the community justice scene, there
is now an energetic interest in the way community justice principles apply to essential
correctional tasks. In this chapter, we begin with a brief review of traditional
correctional services. We then explore community justice in the correctional setting,
and we describe ways in which correctional services are changing to incorporate
community justice ideas. We conclude with a description of the challenge of
community justice for correctional functions.

Themes in traditional correctional services

Many volumes have been written about corrections, and we must simplify a broad,
complex topic to come up with a handful of themes that characterize traditional
correctional activity. We summarize traditional themes to provide a starting place for
talking about community justice versions of corrections in contrast to traditional
corrections. The five themes we describe are dominant topics in traditional
correctional thought, but they also have relevance to community corrections. In the
latter case, they emerge not as core ideas, but as subtopics within larger concerns.

Offender management

In traditional corrections, the technical core is developed to manage offenders through

the process of criminal sanctions. Correctional workers are held accountable for the
way they deal with individual offenders. Computerized information systems track
offenders from the point they are sentenced by the judge to the point they are
terminated from correctional programs. Indeed, every aspect of correctional activity is
designed with regard to the way it assists correctional workers in managing the
offenders assigned to their care.

The offender-management theme determines the level of focus of correctional

attention to be on the individual offender, not the community, the victim, or the
system. The offender orientation permeates correctional action: institutional officers
are assigned to work cell ranges or housing units populated by individual offenders,
and they are accountable for what happens to (and is done by) those offenders;
community supervision is organized into caseloads that are collections of offenders,
perhaps grouped depending upon the way a classification system suggests they be
handled. Under correctional authority, offenders are processed through stages of
correctional work – pretrial, postconviction, and community re-entry. The meaning of
corrections is operationalized by the way each of its clients is dealt with by
correctional staff.

Risk

The central concern correctional officials emphasize in managing offenders is their

risk. High-risk offenders are treated one way – managed with care and with an
emphasis on control; and low-risk offenders are dealt with in another – given less
restrictions and controls. Average-risk cases fall in the middle. Most correctional
programs enable the risk assessment of a given offender to change as he or she is
managed through the penal process, so that an offender-management strategy of tight
controls may be followed by a much less restrictive approach as the offender
demonstrates through behavior that risk is less than the close control requires.

Risk permeates correctional thinking. When a case fails, especially when a new crime
is committed by a person under correctional authority, questions usually follow about
why the risk was not anticipated. This means that it is unwise to underestimate risk,
and correctional officials are encouraged to treat any risk indicator as important. At
the same time, however, there are far too many cases under correctional control to
allow them all to be handled as high risk. Correctional leaders are therefore caught in
a bind – they have to find a substantial body of low-risk cases that justify diverting
their attention to the more problematic cases. But whenever there is a problem with
any of these cases, correctional officials are made to answer for not anticipating the
risk.

Treatment

The idea of rehabilitation has received less support in recent years than it did for most
for the twentieth century, but the idea of correctional programming is still very
important. Almost all offenders have significant personal problems that, left
unchanged, bode poorly for subsequent adjustment to community life after
correctional authority ends: drug abuse, poor impulse control, lack of job skills,
educational deficits, and so on. All correctional settings are asked to assess offender
needs for treatment and provide basic programs that meet those needs.

Unfortunately, the success of correctional treatment programming is notoriously poor.

It is not so much that “treatment doesn’t work,” but rather that even the best treatment
programs work for only some of the clients, and all treatment programs have some
failure. There is no “silver bullet” in correctional rehabilitation. Treatments are at their
most successful when they address the needs of high-risk (rather than low-risk)
clients, so we can see that treatment programming poses an inherent dilemma for
corrections: the treatments are all going to have failures, and if they are applied
correctly (to high-risk cases) to start with, they will have a larger number of failures
overall.

Surveillance and control

Traditional correctional programs have a basic concern for safety of the community.
This implies the need for a minimum level of surveillance and control and suggests
that as program failures mount and as risk levels of clients get higher, the need for
surveillance and control also increases. For correctional administrators, there are no
excuses for losing control of cases. A basic requirement is to know where a client is
supposed to be and to know if the client is actually there. Institutional correctional
officials do counts several times a day to ensure surveillance and control, and
community corrections workers employ home visits and drug testing to achieve
similar knowledge.

With the advent of new technologies, the emphasis on surveillance and control has
grown in recent years. From electronic monitors that identify a person’s where abouts
to drug screens and lie detector tests, correctional officials now employ an ever
increasing array of methods to assert control and aid surveillance. Whenever there is a
problem in a particular offender’s case, the question always seems to be, “Why wasn’t
this person’s behavior under closer scrutiny?” It isn’t possible to watch every offender
all the time, but it is possible to give greater emphasis to watching particular offenders
more closely, especially those of high risk or those who have complicated or
significant treatment needs – in the former case, to make sure that the rules are being
followed, and in the latter, to make sure the treatment program is working.

Punishment

If there is anything that citizens expect from corrections, it is that offenders will be
sanctioned for their misconduct. This has two levels of meaning for correctional
officials. First, it is assumed that correctional workers will make sure that
punishments imposed by the court will be carried out as indicated by the judge.
Second, when offenders fail to conform to the rules of correctional programming,
there must be unpleasant consequences that will tend to persuade the recalcitrant to
rethink their errant ways.

The metric of punishment has changed in recent years. Sentences are longer,
correctional program conditions are more stringent, and expectations for compliance
are higher than they used to be only a scant generation ago. This has caused some
observers to consider punishment as the most important function of corrections. It is
certainly true that the public’s expectations of effective punitive approaches have been
accepted by correctional authorities as an important force in the correctional agenda.

These fi ve themes of traditional corrections – offender management, risk, treatment,

surveillance and control, and punishment – form something of a modern language in
the field. Any useful description of contemporary correctional policy will necessarily
consider these issues. Yet they are not the dominant themes in community justice as it
applies to the correctional arena.

Themes in correctional community justice

The strains of community justice call forth a different set of correctional themes. It is
important to emphasize that these themes are different from those enumerated above,
but not opposite to them. The most significant difference is that community justice
seeks to align itself with and build the capacity of informal social controls at the
community level. Formal social controls – police, courts, and correctional
enforcement – are seen as of secondary importance in building a safer society than
informal the social controls of families, personal associations, social organizations,
and the private sector. Community justice recognizes the importance of the latter, and
seeks to work with and through them to create a stronger community capacity for
public safety.

Below we describe five community justice themes in corrections. We then discuss

how community justice offi cials integrate traditional themes into the concerns
emphasized by community justice proponents.

Neighborhoods and communities

Under a community justice model, corrections maintains a focus on neighborhoods

and local communities. This focus stems from recognition that neighborhoods are a
central aspect of contemporary life, and the correctional responsibility for public
safety requires treating neighborhoods as a client. That is, the community justice
model is not merely about the offenders assigned to correctional supervision and
control, but is also concerned with the places where those offenders live and work and
the people with whom they live and work.

The importance of neighborhood and community is straightforward for correctional

functions that operate when the offender is residing in the community, such as
probation and parole. The activity of these clients has enormous significance for
community life, especially in relation to their struggle to remain crime-free. Beyond
public safety, the presence of offenders in the community connects to the
circumstances of many other residents, as offenders are also family members,
employees, neighbors, parents, peers, and friends to those around them. As we pointed
out in Chapter 1, the concentration of offenders in some locations is great enough that
correctional authorities may have a role in the lives of a large percentage of people
living there.

But the neighborhood connection also applies to the institutional correctional

function. Communities comprise interwoven connections of interpersonal social
networks. These social networks are the basis for collective community activity – it is
through the social networks that groups form, resources are shared, and supports are
provided. Criminologists agree that informal social controls form the basis for public
safety in community life: the capacity of a community to achieve a degree of public
safety through collective activity is referred to as collective efficacy (Sampson,
Raudenbush, and Earls 1997). Without strong, broad networks, there is little collective
efficacy.

Every time an offender is removed from the community for incarceration, those
networks are affected. Whatever that person was doing that damaged the capacity of
the network to support those enmeshed within it is eliminated by incarceration, but
whatever that person was doing to assist the networks is also eliminated. Likewise,
when an offender re-enters the community from prison or jail, those networks are
called upon to absorb the person back as a resident. Thus, high rates of incarceration
can become significant forces in the capacity of social networks in these communities
to perform their public safety functions (Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls 1997).
When large numbers of men are locked up from a particular area, their children lack
male supervision and their parental partners are forced to do double duty as financial
and personal supports for those youngsters. When many residents are fresh from
prison or jail, an area is forced to develop its informal capacities in the face of a
large concentration of people struggling in the workforce and under close law
enforcement scrutiny.

For these reasons, correctional functions under a community justice approach are
concerned with particular neighborhoods and the people who live there. The issue
concerns not only how an offender is behaving, but also how that offender’s situation
– in or out of prison – affects the people who are not under correctional authority.

Partnerships

Community justice organizations, including correctional agencies, do not work in

isolation. Those organizations responsible for a special set of objectives, such as
public safety, partner with other organizations to carry out their functions. The reasons
for partnerships are fairly simple: the problems of community life are so complex and
so interconnected that working on one set of issues in isolation from the others is not
likely to produce much overall change. When organizations begin to work together,
greater change can occur.

The most common correctional partnerships are formed with other criminal justice
organizations, particularly the police. Under community justice, police become natural
partners to probation and parole officers, and public defenders can work alongside
correctional authorities to pursue the interests of the client – especially regarding
treatment, employment, and family relationships. However, when it comes to forming
partnerships in community justice, institutional corrections face the greatest challenge,
but the idea that careful transition planning can improve re-entry success
automatically suggests a role for community partners, even with institutional
correctional functions.

Non-criminal-justice agencies also stand as good partners. For example, treatment

providers become natural partners for the jail, as offenders prepare for release and
seek to maintain continuity in treatment programming. Social services, such as
welfare, child-protective services, and employment-related services, may also work
closely with correctional activity under community justice approaches. Juvenile
correctional workers align themselves closely with the schools. Overall, partnerships
with nonjustice agencies are designed to encourage “seamless” service systems in
which comprehensive strategies are concentrated in communities whose residents
suffer from significant deficits.

Finally, community justice strategies seek private-sector partners. Among the most
important partners are for-profit businesses that operate (or might operate) in the
neighborhoods targeted by community justice initiatives. In making community
quality of life a priority, community justice seeks to help transform troubled
communities into places where businesses can succeed because this helps create
employment opportunities (for offenders and nonoffenders alike) and bolsters a solid
economic foundation for residents. In addition, community justice organizations build
partnerships with private nonprofit organizations, such as foundations, to carry out
community-development initiatives that build a firmer foundation for public safety.

Box 4.1 Operation Night Light

Operation Night Light began in November 1992 as a partnership between probation

officers in the Dorchester, Massachusetts, district court and Boston police officers in
the Anti-Gang Violence Unit (which later became the Youth Violence Strike Force).
This alliance was created at a time when Boston was experiencing heightened gang
violence, a rise in homicide victims under the age of seventeen, public alarm,
increasingly bold behavior of gang members in courthouses, and criticism by minority
community leaders and judges of police stop-and-frisk tactics. Probation officers
worked independently of police, and curfews were not commonly imposed by the
court and were difficult to enforce. In response to those problems, a few probation
officers and police officers met informally to develop the Operation Night Light
model as a more effective way of deterring juvenile violence.

Operation Night Light pairs one probation officer with two police officers to make
surprise visits to the homes, schools, and work sites of high-risk youth probationers
during the nontraditional hours of 7pm to midnight, rather than from 8:30am to
4:30pm, which was previously the norm. In Dorchester, where Operation Night Light
started, probationer surrenders based on new arrests declined 9.2 percent between
January 1994 and June 1996, compared with a statewide increase of 14 percent during
the same period.

(see: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/gun_violence/profile33.html; accessed January 13,

2010)

Victims and communities

Unlike traditional justice services, community justice initiatives concern themselves

with clients other than the offender under direct correctional supervision because the
community justice agenda accepts responsibilities that go beyond the management of
the offender. Community justice strategies recognize that crime and its consequences
are profoundly important concerns for both victims and communities. For these
clients, crime is a significant problem that needs to be overcome.

Traditional correctional practices will claim a concern for victims and communities
that is indirect – by advancing public safety interests, traditional corrections indirectly
benefit victims and their communities. Community justice embraces the interests of
victims and communities directly. The problems victims encounter as a result of the
crime and the difficulties encountered by communities resulting from the removal and
return of resident offenders are made a part of the community justice agenda. The
approach to these issues taken by community justice is one of problem solving.

Problem solving

Community justice is a problem-solving philosophy. The orientation contrasts with

traditional criminal justice, which is adversarial. Under community justice, preference
is given to amelioration of problems and long-range solutions to entrenched
difficulties rather than the mere adjudication of legal disputes. This concern for
identifying problems and finding solutions enables community justice strategies to
embrace a concern for victims and communities.

The problem-solving orientation of community justice means that an unusual set of

questions may be addressed by community justice through its partnerships. The
community justice orientation allows correctional agencies to consider diverse
questions: How do we occupy our youths’ time in the immediate hours after school
when trouble is so common? What can we do about all the trash along the streets of
this neighborhood? How can we facilitate a neighborhood organization to deal with
landlord–tenant problems? What can be done to decrease school truancy? What
should be done about store owners’ complaints about youth groups hanging on the
street corner?
One of the reasons partnerships are so important to community justice is that problem
solving is so important. Rarely are important problems simple. The important
problems faced by communities and their residents are sufficiently complex that no
single organization can resolve them in isolation. Therefore, the community justice
orientation requires correctional agencies to reach out to other groups – police, social
services, and the private sector – to fashion solutions to complicated problems.

Restoration

To some extent, every solution to the problem of crime involves some level of
restoration because crime is destructive to society. It is destructive in tangible ways,
as victims lose property and suffer personal injury. It is destructive in meaningful but
less tangible ways, as citizens lose faith in societal institutions and residents isolate
themselves from one another in order to remain safe (Zehr 1989).

This dual level of loss – tangible and social – suggests that restoration has two aims.
One aim is to repair the losses suffered by victims of crime. This is accomplished by
restitution, usually from the offender but often from the community as well. But the
social damage of crime can be ameliorated only through social reparation. This
involves offenders “giving back” to society by recognizing that the crime they
committed was a wrong done, not just to the victim, but to everybody.

As an objective of community justice action, restoration replaces punishment at the

top of the priority list. Community justice correctional action will include punishment,
because community justice advocates recognize that one of the ways reparation is
achieved is through legal sanction. But in selecting sanctions, there is often significant
latitude, and, all else being equal, community justice strategies give highest preference
to sanctions that restore the victim and repair the frayed social fabric that results from
crime.

Box 4.2 Vermont restorative justice

The crime problem in Vermont is not the incidence of crime, but the fear of crime and
the lack of confidence among the citizens in their criminal justice system. That fear
has created a decade of increased reliance on incarceration as the dominant response
to crime, and the corrections’ budget has quadrupled as education aid declines. As
government has become increasingly centralized, a major source of citizen frustration
is the inability to define what is being achieved by the justice system, both on an
individual case basis and from the perspective of the community. As the media focus
on the spectacular failures and the extremes of the spectrum, government is caught
between overwhelming caseloads of minor criminals and the need to target resources
to protect the public from the dangerous criminals. In the rush to efficiency, the
government bypasses the most effective agents, the community and the family,
instead focusing on the individual cases that squeak the loudest.

In the reparative probation program, ordinary citizens of Vermont make sentencing

decisions about adult criminal offenders from their community. Board members meet
with offenders and victims, resolving their disputes by providing the offenders with
the opportunity to acknowledge their wrongdoing, apologize to their victim, and make
amends to their community. The court sentences the offenders, having pleaded guilty
to a nonviolent crime. The sentence is then suspended, pending their completion of a
reparative agreement.

For the past 200 years, the fundamental purpose of sentencing and corrections has
been retributive. For the past 100 years, judges have had only two choices in
sentencing: to punish, or not. For the past 25 years, we have known that not only does
punishment not work, but that it also makes most offenders more likely to reoffend.
We have attempted to ameliorate the effects of punishment with rehabilitative
strategies and alternative forms of punishment in the community. None of these has
been spectacularly successful in reducing the demand for incarceration.

The reparative probation program represents a different approach. The boards are
focused on the minor crimes – the “broken windows” in James Q. Wilson’s phrase
(Wilson and Kelling 1982) – the crimes that are too petty to be dealt with by the
system and that both diminish the quality of life and are committed by criminals who
learn that we do not care enough about their behavior to do anything about it. They
are the crimes committed by our children and young people. Reparative boards give
citizens an opportunity to do something about their neighborhoods and their
communities. By involving citizens directly in decision making about individual
cases, they are forced to

look at the offenders not as strangers, not as numbers, and not as monsters. The
offenders are forced to confront the reality of their offense and its impact on the
community and their victims. This confrontation, with a restorative outcome, shifts
the paradigm from punishment to reintegration. The offender is held accountable, the
victim is restored, and the community is repaired.

Perhaps even more important, the dispute is resolved by the community, and the
community is empowered. (see: http://www.doc.state.vt.us/gw2/overview.htm)

Integrating traditional correctional thought into the community justice

framework
The traditional concerns of corrections do not disappear under community justice;
rather, they are incorporated into the community justice priorities. The most important
of these priorities is the neighborhood and community focus of community justice,
and most of the traditional correctional agenda is shaped by this orientation.

For example, offender management becomes community focused. The question is not

how offenders may be processed through the criminal sanction, but how to best
reintegrate offenders into the community. For this reason, community corrections
apply most powerfully to the traditional activity of probation and parole, with more
complex implications for institutional corrections. Because offenders live with their
families and in relationships with their neighbors and others who share their context,
the way offenders fit into community life is a concern of community justice offender-
management strategies. Correctional workers become involved with key members of
the offender’s interpersonal network, and they also work to establish and strengthen
new network ties – associates, organizations, and family members are important
sources of support for reintegration.

In working with those in the offender’s social network, community justice workers
must bear in mind the risk the offender represents to people in that network and to
others in the community. Building strong community ties cannot ignore the fact that
offenders have shown, by their past behavior, a willingness to damage those ties
through criminal behavior. Part of what makes working with offenders under
supervision so complex and challenging is the need to balance a realistic concern for
risk with the direct need to establish supports and interdependencies that are
vulnerable to that risk. Community justice workers thus give a significant importance
to the need to monitor the progress of those relationships, both to make sure that they
are remaining supportive of continuing progress toward full reintegration and to pick
up signals of potential problems that may put those networks at risk. Offenders can
hardly be expected to achieve the aims of repairing broken relationships and restoring
the costs of their past crime unless criminal behavior has stopped. And neighborhoods
and communities have a legitimate expectation that offenders have desisted criminal
behavior.

The two most signifi cant ways that community justice workers ensure the progress
toward reintegration is through the combined strategies of treatment programs
and problem-solving efforts. Treatment programs control and reduce risk. Problem-
solving strategies identify ways that risk may be overcome through new offender and
community approaches. For example, an offender who has difficulty finding and
keeping a good job can benefit from job-training programs, but these can be carried
out in such a way that the offender earns some wages during on-the-job training in
work that also benefits the wider community. Some of those wages can go to
restitution, while some of the work can translate into community improvements, such
as trash removal or housing renovation. Thus, community justice workers may try to
develop on-the-job training programs that provide a beginning level of wages and
include some degree of community service.

Finally, both punishment and surveillance and control are aspects of community

justice, but they are used as tools to achieve eventual reintegration rather than as ends
in themselves. By the fact that the offender is placed under correctional authority,
punishment has occurred. Any losses of liberty (for instance, jail time or a prison
sentence) and restrictions on freedom (through conditions of supervision) are deemed
to be aspects of the punishment, and their imposition is the sanction for the offense.
No additional sanctions need be imposed. By the same token, any surveillance or
control that a case encounters is used as a means to facilitate reintegration.
Surveillance and control are not seen as having value except that they are necessary to
lead, eventually, to a fully reintegrated status for the offender. Risk levels, therefore,
may dictate a need for certain kinds of surveillance or control, but these flow from
special consideration in a case and the community, and are not a general part of the
overall correctional program for every offender under community justice supervision.

Thus, under a community justice orientation, traditional correctional themes remain

but are subverted to dominant, central considerations of community justice. It is
possible to see indications of traditional correctional thinking when observing a
community justice system in action. What is different is the larger and broader sense
of client – including victims and the community – and the central concern for
reintegration as the offender-management aim. Moreover, the question posed to assess
the value of particular actions (Will this strategy help the offender adjust to the
community more successfully?) is not directed mainly at the offender but is instead
focused on the question of community quality of life (Will this strategy help
strengthen this community and the offender’s circumstances within it?).

How community justice changes the traditional correctional functions

The ideals of community justice can operate within traditional correctional functions,
but they change the look of those ways of doing business. There are two main
locations for corrections: the community and the institution. For each of these
locations, traditional corrections has two types of functions: regarding the community,
there are probation and parole (re-entry); regarding institutions, there are jails and
prisons. This classification of correctional functions is a bit oversimplified, but it will
enable us to consider the different ways that the concepts of community justice alter
the tasks of corrections.

Community justice and probation

In many ways, probation is the correctional function ideally suited to incorporate the
values of community justice. Probation (along with parole) involves community
supervision, meaning that its operations occur in the community, and its clients reside
in the community. Indeed, the phrase “community-based corrections,” which denotes
probation and parole functions, as well as residential community facilities, indicates
the degree to which these functions have a natural relationship to the community.

Despite this seeming relevance to community, traditional probation has not realized a
community justice orientation. In contrast, what most probation agencies practice is a
form of “Fortress Probation” (Manhattan Institute 1999). Under Fortress Probation,
the probation office is located adjacent to the courthouse, downtown, far away from
the communities in which the clients live. Probation officers rarely visit clients in their
homes or jobs, but instead see them in regularly scheduled visits to the downtown
office. Caseloads are organized to make the reporting process easier: the caseload
either has a balanced number of high-, moderate-, and low-supervision cases to make
the workload of those cases manageable or has “specialized” clients representing
particular problems or supervision issues (such as intensive supervision) to make
management of those special requirements easier. Fortress Probation requires the
clients to come to the office, report on their activities since the previous office visit,
and provide a urine sample for testing to determine compliance with the restrictions
on alcohol and drug use.

There are plenty of critics of the Fortress Probation approach. They point out that
studies of probation effectiveness continually show the futility of the traditional
caseload system of supervision (Manhattan Institute 1999), and they complain that the
reactive style of Fortress Probation means that problems are not prevented but simply
managed. One of the most significant criticisms of this traditional approach is that
office-bound probation officers cannot engage in the kinds of community services that
are needed to support adjustment to the community, and they fail to get to know
anything meaningful about the offender’s family, work circumstances, or living
situation. Yet, these are the factors that will have more effect on the offender’s
eventual adjustment than almost any others.

Under a community justice model, probation moves out of the office and into
community branch offices opened up in the neighborhoods where the majority of
clients live, and probation officers operate from these neighborhood offices.
Sometimes they work in the office, but more often they are in the community,
working not just with offenders, but also with others who live and work in that
neighborhood. The activities of the community justice probation officer go beyond
mere supervision, but the strategy of community justice probation begins by locating
the probation function in the places where clients live and work.
Being “in the field” makes it much easier for community justice probation to expand
its correctional tactics and targets to include more than just supervision and
surveillance of offenders under sentence of the court. The community justice
probation officer recognizes that offenders often succeed or fail largely on the basis of
the nature of informal social controls in their lives, and that probation can work to
strengthen and augment those informal social controls. Informal social controls are the
prosocial relationships that strengthen an offender’s connection to a conventional
lifestyle: family members, employers, associates, and community organizations.
Probation can help enhance the role those informal relationships play in the offender’s
life by reinforcing their importance, supporting the offender’s bond to them, and
showing ways that they can assist the offender’s adjustment.

A neighborhood-based probation system, therefore, does not concern itself with just
the person on probation. It is also concerned with others in the neighborhood who
might play a role in the offender’s adjustment. Community justice probation seeks to
build ties to various community organizations, such as neighborhood councils, social
clubs, and churches, and it relies upon those various organizations to develop a better
relevance to residents who are under criminal justice authority. Each of these targets
can be a part of a probationer’s “making it”: business managers can become
employers, churches can become support groups, and community organizations can
become advocates for community services and even host them.

Community justice probation seeks ways to establish support systems in the

community for probationers. Some offenders live in isolation, of course, and it is
particularly important for probation to help these clients develop support in the
community by turning to churches, civic organizations, and other community groups.
But for most probationers, the key target for community justice probation is the
family. When the offender’s primary relationships are supportive of the offender’s
overall adjustment, chances of success improve. Family members do not
automatically know what they need to do, however, so community justice probation
officers can work with them to understand how they can help the offender succeed in
the community.

Community justice probation is also concerned about victims of crime, as they are
also residents of the community. In many cases, probationers are required to provide
restitution to their victims, and community justice probation recognizes that ensuring
restitution can go a long way to increasing community willingness to participate in
this form of probation. From this perspective, the community is also a victim of crime,
and offenders can be expected to make some form of restitution to the community, not
just to the specific victim. Restitution to the community is usually some type of
community service, such as repairing property, cleaning parks, or restoring damages
in the neighborhood infrastructure.

By locating in the neighborhood, community justice probation tailors its efforts to the
particular neighborhood. For example, if a location is struggling with truancy,
community justice probation will work with police and child-protective services to
develop truancy-prevention strategies, knowing that the children who are having the
most trouble in school are often those whose older siblings or parents have been in
trouble with the law. A place with a large population of elderly might develop a
community-service system of delivering food and medicine to them, using the clients
of the criminal justice system to make the deliveries. By accepting the responsibility
to work on problems such as these, which extend beyond working with actual clients,
community justice probation embraces a truly preventive function.

Often the public believes probation to be “soft on crime” and the offender merely
receives a slap on the wrist. When probation is used properly it can be very effective
in providing sanctioning and rehabilitation for the offender. The public desires
sanctioning but they also want rehabilitative treatment to be included. Specific and
general deterrence involve the offender perceiving that the cost of committing the
illegal act (punishment) outweighs the benefits of committing the crime (reward).
Spiegler and Guevremont (2003) argue that the criminal’s perceptions about
deterrence matter for rehabilitation and retribution. If the offender perceives the intent
of the punishment prescribed by the sanctioning body not to be legitimate and
deserved, the punishment received can lead to anger, resentment, and retaliation. In
that case, deterrence would not be achieved because the punishment was not received
by the offender with the proper intent. While offenders in general do not like to be
punished, they respond to deserved punishment better than to punishment they believe
is undeserved or excessive.

While probation does not provide the same level of sanctioning as imprisonment, it
still does allow for some incapacitation due to the supervision provided by probation
officers. Probation also allows for rehabilitative actions to be taken as well.
Applegate, Smith, Sitren, and Springer (2009) studied misdemeanant probationers to
determine their individual understanding of what the probation experience meant to
them. They wanted to find out what goals each probationer thought probation was
serving, not what goals the probationer believe it should strive toward. Applegate et
al. found that the respondents thought probation was serving a variety of purposes, but
a large number believed that their sentence was a deterrent and more than 90 percent
of the probationers agreed or strongly agreed that they had given up any future crime
so they would not be on probation again. About 60 percent felt that probation
promoted personal growth and provided assistance with problems. Many respondents
understood that their probation was serving a retributive purpose and more than half
of the respondents felt their sentence was repaying society for their crime.
Applegate et al. believe that it is important whether offenders perceive probation as a
punitive experience. According to their findings a large majority of probationers
perceive an increased risk for punishment for any future crime and say that the threat
of probation will keep them from offending again.

While the study conducted by Applegate et al. only involved misdemeanant

probationers, it seems reasonable that felons on probation would have some of the
same reactions. One of the main reasons that the misdemeanant probationers felt they
were being sanctioned was because they were being closely supervised by a probation
officer who held their future in his or her hands. The message seems to be that
probation, when administered properly, can provide the deterrence and sanctioning
that the public wants along with the opportunity to rehabilitate the offender.

Box 4.3 Maricopa County neighborhood probation centers

The Maricopa County (Arizona) Adult Probation Department operates neighborhood-

based probation services in the Phoenix area. Each service is a partnership between
the probation department, the Phoenix Police Department, and community
organizations in various neighborhoods. In 1996, the Maricopa County Adult
Probation Department established its first neighborhood probation project in the
Coronado district of Phoenix. Two other neighborhood probation projects soon
followed. Neighborhood probation projects have two goals: to reduce recidivism and
to expand the role of probation to include problem solving in the community.

Unlike intensive supervision programs, which define their target populations by

offense, neighborhood probation partnerships define their target populations by
existing neighborhood boundaries. For example, the Garfield neighborhood probation
office targets all probationers living in the Garfield neighborhood of central Phoenix,
an area a little more than 2 miles in diameter. Targeting established neighborhoods
affords the partnerships easier access to community boards and churches.

Although each of the Maricopa County Adult Probation Department’s three

neighborhood probation partnerships adjusts its activities to fit the needs of its
particular neighborhood, each shares several attributes. Each office maintains a strong
relationship with local law enforcement. Informally, police officers spend time in
neighborhood probation officers familiarizing themselves with probationers in the
neighborhood and discussing cases with probation officers. Formally, police and
probation officers coordinate roundups and probationers’ participation in community-
service projects. Police officers also provide backup for probation officers making
home visits and aid in the observation and supervision of probationers, serving as an
extra set of eyes while they are on patrol. In return, probation officers use their
broader search powers to aid in police investigations, and police officers receive
increased cooperation from the community because residents know they are working
with probation officers.

Partnerships maintain a strong relationship with the community. Both probation

officers attend all community board meetings. Probation officers and police officers
coordinate projects in which probationers perform their community service in the
neighborhood. Sometimes, maintaining a strong relationship with the community
requires a deep understanding of the neighborhood. Staff from the Garfield
neighborhood probation office regularly visit and provide services (such as running
errands) for several elderly women in the area who are considered the neighborhood
matriarchs. In

exchange for these visits, staff receive valuable insight into the history of the
neighborhood and the roots of any problems. Like police officers, community
members often visit the neighborhood probation offices to talk with the officers about
the neighborhood and its issues. Finally, each partnership maintains a strong
relationship with probationers. Geographic proximity allows probation officers more
contact with their probationers. In addition, probationers receive supervision from
local law enforcement officials who are aware of their probation conditions. Because
they are seen as part of the community, probation and police officers believe the
contacts are more productive and that they have better rapport with the probationers.
The community also assists in the supervision of probationers. Because probationers
are heavily involved in community-service projects, residents see probationers
performing valuable services for the neighborhood and, in turn, these residents are
more likely to perform services (such as job placement) for the probationers.

The following example illustrates how these three functions interact. While attending
a neighborhood board meeting in Coronado, probation officers learned that the biggest
concern for the community was the condition of one particular home. The owner of
the home had been accumulating garbage in his yard for years. Community members
complained about its appearance and its odor. Further, they believed the condition of
the home was responsible for lowering property values and for discouraging working
families from moving into the neighborhood. Police officers explained that they
would continue to issue citations, but they could not force the owner to clean his
property. The newly established Coronado Neighborhood Probation Office
volunteered to have probationers clean the house as part of their community-service
obligations. The community board was thrilled and volunteered to provide extra
equipment and labor, as did the local police precinct. The house was cleaned within a
month. As yet, Maricopa County’s neighborhood probation partnerships have not
been evaluated. Nonetheless, officials believe the programs are meeting some of their
goals. They note that there has been a 45 percent decrease in crime in Coronado, and
that turnover is lower among neighborhood probation offi cers than among traditional
probation officers.

Community justice and the jail

Most jails are community based in that they operate within the confines of a particular
community, but turning a jail into a community justice correctional operation is not a
simple matter. Jails handle offenders that are confined for various reasons: some are in
lockup for only a night or two, until they make bail; others stay incarcerated until they
are sentenced, then go to probation or prison to complete their sentences; still others
receive jail terms as sentences and switch from being detained to doing time for a few
months before they are released. Jails are very important to the community. There are
almost 10 million admissions to jails each year, and a similar number of releases (US
Department of Justice 1995). If the processes of removal and return are important to
community life, then jails are a major part of those processes.

Most often, the typical jail inmate stays inside for only a few days or weeks and then
returns to the community. What can be done about those cases from the perspective of
community justice? Three principles would seem to be important in the application of
community justice to the jail: informal social controls, transition planning, and
restoration/restitution.

The jail stay, no matter how short, always represents a disruption in the offender’s
life, and the disruption can imperil the ties to informal social controls (family and
others) that will prove so important after the offender leaves jail. If the person serves a
reasonable period in jail – several weeks or a few months – there will often be
profound consequences with regard to informal social controls and community
supports: loss of a job, break in relationships, eviction from housing, conflict with
intimates, and so forth. These can be quite problematic for later adjustment, even if
they are very recent changes. A community justice orientation to a jail will try to
minimize these losses. It will work to keep employment prospects strong, reach out to
family members so they may retain contact with the person in confinement, assist
community groups in reaching out to the jailed offender, and so forth. The broad aim
of targeting these informal social controls is to try to create a situation in which the
inmate, upon release, will be surrounded by supports that will tend to reinforce a
positive adjustment. Perhaps most important, the jail staff can help set up treatment
programs for drug and alcohol abuse or anger management that will continue to be a
part of the offender’s life after release.
Transition planning, therefore, is very important. In the typical case, a jailed inmate is
simply released with no particular supports or assistance. In New York City, for
example, inmates are released in the wee hours of the morning and put on a bus to the
center area of the borough where they live. They dismount the bus into an awaiting
gathering of drug dealers and prostitutes. Under community justice, the plan for return
to the community – especially its impact on family, neighbors, and potential
employers – is carefully factored into the way the release is conducted, and the idea is
to use release as the first positive step in the overall adjustment to the community.

Jails can also play an important role in restoration and restitution. One of the ironies
of incarceration is that offenders who are locked up cannot make restitution to their
victims. But a community justice jail finds ways to make restitution possible: inmates
are allowed to work for income that partly goes to a victim’s fund, trustee programs
are created that allow the offender to perform restorative services in the community,
and inmate programs that benefit the community are encouraged.

The jail can also be decentralized to local levels, and facilities similar to halfway
houses can be a part of the offender’s initial stay in the community. These facilities
enable offenders to work during the day, sustain their family contacts, and provide
income to the family and restitution to the victim, all while becoming gradually more
involved in the neighborhood and its system of informal social controls. Jails are not
community-based correctional facilities, but they can be reconfigured to have a
community justice relevance.

Box 4.4 Travis County community justice

Ronald Earle was first elected district attorney in Travis County (Austin, Texas) in
1976, after working previously in judicial reform, as a municipal court judge, and in
the state legislature. Over two decades, Earle transformed the Travis County District
Attorney’s Office from a small office of about 10 attorneys to one that in 1996
employed 157 staff, including 57 assistant district attorneys, with a Felony Trial
Division, a Family Justice Division (that coordinated the investigation and
prosecution of child and family-related cases, and child-protection actions), and a
highly developed Special Prosecutions Unit (that investigated and prosecuted public-
integrity and fraud cases). During his entire time in office, Earle has seen himself –
and acted – as a leader whose mission was to involve the community in criminal
justice processes.

From early on, Earle led much of criminal justice planning and established many
integrated initiatives among public and private agencies in Travis County and the city
of Austin. For example, he wrote state legislation for and then helped to create a
Community Justice Council and Community Justice Task Force, bodies that bring
together elected officials, appointed professionals, and private citizens to oversee all
criminal justice operations in the county. Along with his first assistant, Rosemary
Lehmberg, who headed the Family Justice Division for many years, Earle was largely
responsible for founding the Children’s Advocacy Center in Austin. Here, as in other
initiatives, the District Attorney’s Office brought people in the community together,
obtained support from the necessary agencies, helped find sufficient resources to get
the project off the ground, and then when it became self-sustaining, passed it over to
community control.

In 1996, Earle set up the first of several Neighborhood Conference Committees

(NCCs), in which adult volunteers, cleared by Austin authorities and trained, serve on
panels that hear cases diverted from juvenile court. After intensive hearings that
involve the juvenile offenders and members of their families, the panels offer
individualized contracts to offenders that include restitution, community service,
counseling and/or treatment, and mentoring by adults in the community. Participating
adults in the NCCs say they welcome the opportunity to take responsibility for
directly addressing crime and working with juvenile offenders in their own
neighborhoods. Anecdotal accounts of individual offenders’ experiences suggest that
one outcome of the

NCC process is the creation of strong relationships between the offenders and adults
in the local community that survive the period of their contracts.

Earle ran for re-election against his first contender in 20 years. He used the campaign
as an opportunity to inform the public about his record and the rationale that informed
it. For example, he put forward a mission that included a commitment to fashioning
criminal justice processes, including prosecution, in accord with principles of
restorative justice. Within the District Attorney’s Office, even the prosecution of cases
was seen as an opportunity to help victims heal. Victim–witness advocates and
assistant district attorneys work closely with victims throughout trials, and a number
of programs, such as victim– offender mediation and restitution sessions, are
available. Earle also pursues programs and processes that he believes will cause
offenders to change their behavior, to take responsibility for their actions, and to make
restitution. Diversion and treatment programs supported by the DA’s office offer
counseling, treatment and rehabilitative services, mediation, and community-service
alternatives for both adults and juveniles. In 1997, a new Community Justice Center
opened in Austin to house offenders from the local community and offer programs
that would help them to work toward becoming part of the community upon release.
Vigorous prosecution and punishment of offenders is secondary to, but accompanies,
each of these goals.
Although Earle and his top staff in the District Attorney’s Office have been involved
for years in leading most of these efforts in the community, by 1998 they were
engaging the entire office in sometimes heated discussions about changes that might
be made to decentralize prosecution efforts and build accountability to local
neighborhoods. Earle had hired a police officer experienced in community policing as
program manager for a new “community prosecution” effort and was working with a
new police chief in an attempt to build police–prosecutor collaboration by
geographical area. He also moved into the area of quality-of-life offenses, publicly
supporting an ordinance prohibiting camping in public spaces, designating assistants
in the office to handle nuisance-abatement suits, targeting gangs and porn shops – all
of which provoked considerable controversy and public debate.
(see: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/criminaljustice/publications/cross-site.pdf)

Community justice and the prison

Of all the correctional functions, the prison is the most removed from a community
justice orientation. Yet prisons are an important part of community justice, even
though they seem to be remote from community life. One reason is that each prisoner
comes from a community, and concentrations of inmate populations often come from
certain communities. On any given day, about 12 percent of the African-American
males in their twenties and early thirties are in a prison or a jail (US Department of
Justice 2001); in some inner neighborhoods, such as in sections of Brooklyn, 15
percent of the adult males go to prison or jail each year (Cadora and Swartz 2000).
These kinds of concentrations of removal (and return, which we discuss later) pose
important issues for the communities in which the effects are most concentrated.

The typical prisoner is away from the community between two and three years. This is
a long enough time to suffer severe disruptions in ties to informal social controls back
in the community, and long enough to allow significant changes in the circumstances
of those left behind. Children grow, spouses form new relationships, families move,
loved ones die, jobs dry up, and society slowly changes in the technologies and
everyday practices the released offender will encounter. For many prisoners, the
seriously disrupted social ties are a major obstacle to overcome in the eventual
adjustment back to the community.

Prisons can help make that process of adjustment easier. An emphasis can be placed
on facilitating the maintenance of family ties through visitation programs and access
to long-distance telephone services. (Currently, operator-assisted collect calls from
prisons to home are among the most expensive calls in the industry.) Prisoners can
receive the kinds of wages that enable them to contribute some money back to the
family and to pay a portion of the necessary restitution as well. Inmates can also be
allowed to interact with community groups and communicate with outsiders who
might play a role in social supports upon release.

As the offender nears release, a process of planning for transition can occur. This
process can help create linkages to the community by involving family members,
employers, and residents’ groups (such as churches) in the preparation for the
transition. Prison time can shift to the community, as offenders move from the secure
confinement of the remote facility to semisecure halfway-house facilities in transition
neighborhoods. Treatment programs can be located in the community, and other
supportive resources can serve both halfway-house inmates and community members
equally.

The point of any community justice initiative in prison is to reduce the isolation of
prisons from community life. Prisoners are being incarcerated because of their crimes,
but with only minor exceptions, they will eventually return to the community. It is
common sense to organize the incarceration term in a way that makes return to the
community more likely to be successful.

Box 4.5 The Oregon Accountability Model

The Oregon Accountability Model is designed to provide efficient implementation of

many of the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) initiatives and projects that
provide a foundation for inmates to lead successful lives upon release. The Model has
six components that are woven together to form a fiber that strengthens the
department’s ability to hold offenders

accountable for their actions and DOC staff accountable for achieving the mission and
vision of the department. The corrections plan is based on mitigating seven criminal
risk factors that have been shown to predict future criminal behavior. The risk factors
are associates, substance abuse, community functioning, education and employment,
emotional and mental health, marital and family life, and attitudes.

The ultimate goal of the Oregon Accountability Model is to improve public safety.
The program elements that work to address the previously listed risk factors are:

Staff–Inmate Interaction – Correctional practices such as classification, gang

management, and housing assignment hold inmates accountable for their actions
every day. It is recognized that staff interactions with inmates help shape positive
behavior. The department encourages staff to influence inmates’ behavior,
acknowledge positive change and provide incentives to inmates to change their
behavior.
Work and Programs – The Department of Corrections uses the assessments
performed at intake to create a corrections plan for each inmate. The plan is specific to
the inmate and is developed to prepare the inmate for living in the community upon
release. Many correctional programs contribute to inmates’ preparedness for work and
others teach inmates job skills. Most Oregon state inmates have a job while
incarcerated to give them on-the-job experience.

Children and Families – The department encourages productive relationships

between families and inmates to strengthen ties and increase the likelihood of success
upon release. The Children of Incarcerated Parents Program provides inmates with
tools for successful parenting and allows opportunities for inmates to practice those
pro-social behaviors.

Re-entry – The department is involved in a statewide project that focuses on

transition – a seamless movement of offenders from the community to incarceration to
community supervision. Connections with the community before release are important
factors in offenders’ success on the outside, and may include work, treatment religion,
and housing. Seven of the department’s prisons have been identified as reentry
facilities and they will be geared toward preparing inmates for release during their last
six months of incarceration.

Community Supervision and Programs – The department continually works in

partnership with each county to develop, deliver, and administer best practices
regarding supervision, sanctions, and programs for offenders and their families in the
communities. The goal is to reduce the odds that these offenders will commit new
crimes. (see: www.doc.state.or.us/DOC/PUBAFF/oam_welcome.shtml; accessed
February 12, 2010)

Community justice and parole (re-entry)

Each year, almost 600,000 inmates are released from prison (Travis, Solomon, and
Waul 2001), and their collective impact on the communities they re-enter is
significant. Studies show that the rate of crime in a given community is associated
with the number of prisoners returning to that community (Clear, Rose, and Ryder
2000). Obviously, community safety is an important consideration in the re-entry of
offenders.

Community justice in re-entry can function in much the same way as community
justice in probation: through a neighborhood center that provides an array of services
to newly released offenders, their families, and other residents. Indeed, in most
communities with high concentrations of offenders as residents, the re-entry services
will be a part of the community justice neighborhood center operated by probation.
Because the same sorts of relationships are needed with employers, social services,
community groups, and victims as were described for neighborhood probation centers,
re-entry services fit in with the approach of such a center.

The main additional function of a neighborhood-based re-entry center is participation

in the transition planning process that begins with the last stages of incarceration.
Family members, potential employers, and others are consulted in the release
decisions and the circumstances of the offender’s return. A discussion is held
regarding the supports that will be used to maximize the opportunity for successful
adjustment, and the responsibilities of the offender in re-entry are explained. The role
of key people in the offender’s re-entry is developed and mutually understood by the
local residents and the offender alike. When re-entry occurs, everyone is prepared for
it.

Box 4.6 Rhode Island Family Life Center

The Rhode Island Family Life Center is a collaborative project of the Rhode Island
Department of Corrections and local community-based and civic organizations. In
1999, the project laid out a detailed plan for how it would merge correctional
operations with community participation as described below.

Discharge Planning: The Family Life Center (FLC) will incorporate a strengths-based

approach to case management, employing Community Living Consultants (CLC) in
lieu of case managers. The CLC will first meet with the offender, who participates in
the process voluntarily, to begin building a relationship through the discharge
planning process 90 days before release. The CLC will spend time with the offender
to create a workable discharge plan that capitalizes on the offender’s assets while
addressing any outstanding service needs. In this way, offenders will feel a sense of
ownership over the process and will develop a relationship with the CLC that will be
continued upon release. This early relationship building and

buy-in will be the seeds that will grow into offenders’ long-term engagement with the
FLC. At the same time, the CLC will work with the offender to identify family
members and other familial networks, which can serve to support the offender as he or
she returns to the community. The CLC will reach out to these support systems to help
prepare them for the offender’s return and will also help address any service needs
that they may have.

Case Process: Each CLC will handle approximately 20 to 30 active cases at any one
time, taking in seven new participants a month. The most intensive engagement will
take place six weeks prior to release and six weeks after release to the community.
While the CLC will intake 40 cases a year, the natural flow of adjustment to the
community and client attrition will allow for an active case load of 30 clients, with a
much smaller number taking up the majority of the CLC’s time. The FLC will house
five CLCs who will retain a generalist perspective – understanding that offenders and
their families have complicated lives that require holistic responses. The FLC’s
program coordinator will have the clinical expertise to assess offenders for mental
health and substance-abuse services. The bonding relationship between the CLC and
the offender is critical to the offender’s successful reintegration, so CLCs will remain
engaged with those offenders who are temporarily remanded. CLCs will meet weekly
as a group with the program coordinator to review all current cases, share information,
and ensure that offenders and their families are receiving the best possible care. CLCs
will follow up with their clients for a period of 18 months in order to help them access
services as new needs arise and to gather data that will help assess the efficacy of the
FLC’s interventions.

Offender progress in stabilizing in the community will be celebrated at quarterly

ceremonies. Offenders who have maintained a period of stability in the community as
defined by the commission – having no new criminal offenses and meeting the
majority of their self-defined goals – are eligible to become alumni of the FLC.

Criminal Justice Partnerships: The FLC will have two on-site probation and parole
officers who will be supervising offenders returning to the four zip codes. The
community supervision officers will work as a team with the CLCs, holding regular
meetings to discuss offenders’ progress meeting their goals. Community supervision
officers will work together with the CLCs to devise alternative responses to technical
violations in order to help offenders remain within the community, rather than be
remanded.

Social Service Partners: The FLC planning committee has selected five major service
agencies to provide services to the FLC’s clients. During its transitional phase, the
FLC will develop Memoranda of Understanding with

each of these providers. The following five agencies have agreed to provide services
to offenders involved in the FLC: Amos House; The Providence Center; Phoenix
House; The Urban League; and Miriam Hospital.

• Amos House is a multipurpose agency located in South Providence specializing in

providing shelter for the homeless. It provides case management and a variety of
social-service programs for this population and will support FLC participants through
the provision of transitional housing and job-readiness training.

• The Providence Center will provide services for returning offenders who require
treatment for mental illness, chemical dependency, behavioral disorders, and
emotional problems. The Providence Center’s services include medication, case
management, and psychotherapy services.

• Phoenix House will provide substance-abuse treatment services for offenders at the
FLC. Phoenix House runs a long-term residential therapeutic community and an
outpatient clinic. Phoenix House has designed treatment specifically for Latino/Latina
clients and provides counseling for youth at the Rhode Island Training School, the
youth detention facility.

• The Urban League is a community-based nonprofit organization with a 62-year

record of service to the Black and other minority populations in Rhode Island. Its
mission is the elimination of racial discrimination and segregation and the
achievement of parity for minorities. The Urban League has developed a special
expertise in employment and training issues and will provide employment training
and job-readiness training to participants of the FLC.

• Miriam Hospital will provide health-care services for returning offenders, who
typically have health problems related to hepatitis C, HIV/ AIDS, diabetes, and
hypertension.

Community corrections and restoration

One of the values that sets community justice apart from traditional criminal justice is
a concern for restoration. Crime is understood as impairing community. It damages
the fabric of mutual trust that is necessary to the very idea of community, and it
generates fear of association that makes community harder to achieve. Doing
something to prevent crime is a part of building community, but doing something
about the damage that results from crime is an essential part of community justice.

Community justice approaches restorative justice as problem solving. It is

significantly different from the “contest” version of traditional criminal law, which is
illustrated by the very name given to its cases: for example, State v. Wilson. By
contrast, community justice conceptualizes a criminal case not as a contest between
two disputants, but a problem between three parties: the offender, the victim, and the
community. What is needed is a way to design case outcomes that best meet the
legitimate interest of each party to the problem at hand.

In community justice, the offender has a legitimate interest in being allowed to find a
way to re-establish ties to the community; the victim has an interest in having the
losses suffered at the hands of the offender restored; and the community has an
interest in developing some confidence that the offender will refrain from this kind of
conduct in the future. Each interest connotes an obligation, as well. The offender is
obliged to repair the damage and to provide some tangible assurance that criminality
will not recur. The victim has an obligation to identify the losses that need to be
restored and to entertain the possibility of a reconstituting community with the
offender (note that this is not an obligation to rebuild community with the offender,
just to entertain the possibility of this rebuilding under the “right” circumstances,
regarding which the victim has a voice). The community has an obligation to identify
the circumstances under which both the victim and the offender can be restored to
community.

Restorative community justice is an important, different way to conceive of justice. It

gives both the community and the victim an active role in determining the appropriate
sanction in a case, and it gives the offender a voice in that same process. By opening
the process to those who are most affected by its outcome, the restorative model seeks
to develop solutions both to the problems that result from crime and to the
impediments to community that accompany the existence of crime.

Women in prison

Much has been written about the effect of imprisonment on the fabric of the
community. The continual movement of persons into and out of the community
creates instability within families and the community at large. Often overlooked in
that discussion is the effect of the imprisonment of women on families and the
community. Because males are seen as income earners their absence can be quantified
more easily than women.

From 2000 to 2006 the rate of females under state or federal jurisdiction exceeded that
of males. According to US Department of Justice (2007), the annual growth rate for
female incarceration in state and federal prisons was 2.9 percent compared with 1.8
percent for men. From 2005 to 2006, the change was 4.5 percent for females and 2.7
percent for males. It is clear that the increase in females being placed under state or
federal jurisdiction presents many problems for the stability of communities, since
women are the primary caregivers for minor children.

Women find themselves being incarcerated for a variety of reasons, but in many cases
the arrests comes because of a boyfriend or significant other who uses the woman and
her residence as a base for illegal activity. The relationship is often characterized by
emotional abuse and the insistence of the male that if it were not for him, the woman
would not be able to find companionship. Often the male provides just enough
financial support for the woman and the children to allow her to stay at home and
watch the “business” while he goes out to conduct illegal activity. In low-income
areas the place of residence is often public subsidized housing or rental property and,
when the illegal activity is discovered, the woman and her children are evicted. Once
the eviction is completed the male usually disappears leaving the woman to care for
the children with no stable place to live. If the evidence indicates that the woman was
aware of or participated materially in the criminal activity, an arrest follows and
children are placed in foster care or turned over to immediate relatives such as
grandparents for proper care.

La Vigne, Brooks, and Shollenberger (2009) examined female prisoners leaving the
Texas prison system and returning to Houston. They found that those prisoners who
were mothers looked most forward to reuniting with their children after release but
they also experienced more conflict with other family members when they returned
home. The researchers also discovered that women had greater difficulty in finding a
retaining employment for the first several months after release. This discovery was
attributed to the fact that women are less likely than their male counterparts to have
gained skills or participated in job training programs while incarcerated. In concert
with previous research, La Vigne et al. found that the women in their study were more
likely than men to have problems stemming from drug use and were twice as likely as
men to be back in prison due to a drug offense or a property offense driven by
addiction problems.

Some implications from the Houston study are that treatment programs should be
revised to address women’s issues and challenges holistically with attention toward
the factors that drive women into substance abuse. The researchers also cite the need
for educational and employment programs that assist women in finding legal
employment after release. This factor is critical because many women released from
prison are the sole breadwinners for their families and their lack of education and
experience makes finding meaningful employment difficult. For both females and
males released from prison, family relationships are critical to providing the necessary
support for the prisoner to continue employment, refrain from using illegal
substances, and reoffending. Research has shown that males are able to reestablish
family ties with immediate relatives and significant others in their lives. Women, on
the other hand, appear to have more difficulty in reestablishing relationships with
immediate family and the researchers theorize that this tenuousness in the
relationships may center on the minor children that have been cared for by the family
during the prisoner’s incarceration. La Vigne et al. recommend pre-release family
conferencing where the prisoner and the family members can strengthen the family
support systems but also share openly concerns all may have about the roles and
responsibilities of each family member. These policy recommendations can be helpful
to pre-release specialists in all state correctional facilities. Properly preparing the
women for re-entry into society appears to pay benefits for not only the prisoner but
the family and community as well.
Community justice centers in the neighborhood context: a vision for the future

As it stands, the prevailing criminal justice system is almost entirely focused on

responding to individual crimes, prosecuting individual cases, and managing
individual offenders. Despite the myriad experiments in community justice, taken as a
whole, the criminal justice system – particularly corrections – is dominated by the
individual case orientation and has not made a systematic shift toward organizing its
operations around the circumstances of places. But what would corrections look like if
it were systematically oriented to do business in neighborhoods? A common
expression holds that “if you don’t know where you’re going, you probably won’t get
there.” To that end, it is probably important to develop an anticipatory picture of how
corrections might look if it were neighborhood based.

Although everyone’s vision for community justice might not look the same, the
community justice “movement” is at a stage in its development in which it can only
benefit from a diverse set of ideas. We offer one, brief scenario of how a corrections
system infused with the ideas of community justice might look in a particular
neighborhood.

One way in which corrections might incorporate community justice principles is in the
form of a neighborhood community justice center located inside the neighborhood,
ideally in the hardest-hit area of the community. The center serves as a resource both
for residents being supervised by corrections agencies and for their families, victims
of crime, and other residents in need of assistance. To overcome the fragmentation of
services that traditionally prevails between criminal justice agencies, the center houses
offices for transitional staff from the state’s prison system and local jail, supervision
staff from the probation/parole department, and police officers from the local precinct.
To facilitate working partnerships with the community, the center also makes space
available for the local housing-development organization, substance-abuse treatment
agency, local YMCA, vocational training and job-placement assistance program,
victim-assistance agency, and other local faith-based or community social-service
institutions.

In addition to the daily interactions that close physical proximity encourages, the
center’s staff meet monthly to assess progress in the neighborhood, identify new
priorities, and plan how to implement its strategies. At the same time, the center
serves as a meeting place for a variety of community discussions and forums.
Residents under the supervision of the justice system report here, as do ex-prisoners
making the transition back to the community; but other residents also use the center.
When there are questions about illegal dumping or trouble corners, residents know
that the center will help refer them to the proper authorities who can best address their
problems.
While the center is a locus of activity in the neighborhood for community justice, not
all the activities it sponsors take place there. Indeed, the majority of programs and
activities, which are only planned and coordinated by the center, take place all around
the neighborhood. These neighborhood programs include community guardianship,
civic leadership, workforce development, and supportive health care and housing.
Community guardianship

The community guardianship program teams up probation and parole officers with
local tenant associations, home owners, parks employees, and block associations.
Together, they sponsor civic, recreational, social, and other community-service
activities in areas of the neighborhood that have been identified as hotspots of trouble.
Instead of depending entirely on police to respond to complaints by conducting
sweeps and arrests, the guardianship program establishes proactive social events that
make delinquency and other drug and public order crime difficult to take place. At the
same time that it targets trouble locations, the guardianship program brings together
mentors from faith-based and other social-service organizations, like the YMCA, and
probation/parole officers. These mentor teams work closely with high-risk residents
who are on probation/parole to ensure that they have the sufficient guidance and
support to avert opportunistic illicit activities.
Civic leadership

The civic leadership program is a project-based series of neighborhood revitalization

initiatives that combine obligatory community service for residents under
probation/parole supervision and service by other residents who volunteer their time
to community improvement projects. The civic leadership program brings together
organizations like Habitat for Humanity, the local community-service society, public
schools, local businesses, and the municipal parks agency with probation/parole and
corrections officers. The coalition targets vacant lots, trash-strewn streets, broken-
down and graffiti-covered storefronts, and dilapidated housing for beautification and
rehabilitation. Resident volunteers are teamed up with resident offenders to create
community gardens, murals, and other public-space projects with technical support
from the participating agencies and supervisory services from corrections officers.
Workforce development

A priority of the community justice center is the financial stability and informal social
control that comes from stable employment. The probation/parole department works
in partnership with a coalition of local businesses, the community employment
agency, schools, and public libraries. Together they offer vocational literacy,
employment training, and job programs to both resident offenders and other residents
in need of employment. Local employers are provided with tax credits for employing
probationers and parolees. The local employment agency sponsors a job club to help
employed probationers and parolees keep their jobs. They work with a
probation/parole officer who offers specialized support around employment obstacles
typically encountered by residents with criminal records. At the same time, job-skills
training is integrated with vocational-literacy education and tailored to the kinds of
jobs that the local businesses offer. These services are also offered to local residents
who are in need of literacy services.
Supportive health care and housing

The center sponsors a stable housing program because it is well documented that one
of the greatest impediments to crime-free living is lack of housing for returning ex-
prisoners. Among the numerous housing initiatives sponsored by the center, two are
of particular note. The first focuses on the eviction from public housing of family
members who have a criminal record. To overcome this obstacle, the center brings
together a coalition from its guardianship program and public housing officials to
petition for exceptions to the public housing prohibition. The program recruits
members of the tenant association and the mentor teams to sponsor the return of ex-
prisoners to their former public housing apartments. In another of its housing
programs, the center works with the local housing development organization to
establish tenant-managed, affordable-housing apartment complexes. Through an
innovative funding strategy, the center combines federal funding for housing with
state correctional tax credits traditionally given to construction firms that build
prisons, and use these funds to build supportive, mixed-use housing for low-income
residents and residents involved in the criminal justice system.

Together, these programs provide only a glimpse of the possibilities that a community
justice-oriented correctional agenda could accomplish if it became committed to these
principles. The possibilities are endless, but these are some of the kinds of
partnerships and coalitions that could arise if corrections shifts its attention from an
exclusive concern for the individual to one that takes into consideration the
community’s priorities, needs, and inherent strengths.

Box 4.7 Returning home: understanding the challenges of prisoner reentry

In order to understand issues that contribute to the successful reentry of prisoners into
society, The Urban Institute sponsored a 2009 study of 210 men exiting prison and
returning to the Houston area. The study conducted three waves of interviews with the
men (just prior to release, two to four months after release, and eight to ten months
after release), conducted extensive interviews with family members of men being
released from incarceration, and obtained information through semi-structured
telephone interviews with community stakeholders to gather information about what
factors make reentry successful. While the study is specific to the release of Texas
prisoners who return to Houston, it provides insightful information that can be
adopted by correctional officials and reentry specialists throughout the United States.

Male prisoners returning to Houston, Texas

Most of the exiting prisoners are African-American or Latino who are familiar with
the criminal justice system through previous incarcerations. The

study found that family support was a major factor in assisting the men with housing,
financial support, and emotional support. Those men with higher levels of family
support were also less likely to engage in substance abuse after release. Another issue
discovered through the study was that the men left prison with a large amount of debt
and they encountered challenges in finding employment due to the lack of photo
identification and the existence of a criminal record. Unemployment and substance
abuse are also key contributors to reincarceration. Prisoners who participated in
substance abuse and employment programs in prison and community programs
immediately after release in prison were less likely to return to prison. This finding
suggests that prison and community programs can be effective if administered
correctly.

The researchers found that after release, one-third of the prisoners wanted to
participate in programs in the community but were not able to do so mostly because
they were unaware of available programs. When asked what programs would be
helpful after release the men responded with job training, health insurance, education,
and financial assistance. Of interest to the researchers was that eight to ten months
after release about one-third of the men reporting being involved in a community
organization of some type, with the most common type of organization being a
religious institution. It appeared that that maintaining involvement with religious
organizations decreased over time with about 32 percent of the men who reported
belonging to a religious institution during the first interview no longer belonging eight
to ten months after release. The data indicated that belonging to a religious
organization shortly after release was associated with lower incidents of substance
abuse and lower incarceration rates and that those who left their religious organization
at a later point lost the positive benefits of association with the organization and
suffered a higher likelihood of substance use and recidivism.

The research findings suggest that those released from prison are lacking needed
support both behind bars and after release at the basic level the men being released
needed a picture identification that does not indicate they have been recently released
from prison, appropriate clothing to wear to seek employment, and resources that
sustain them and keep them from being tempted to turn to crime to obtain needed
cash. Also problematic is the degree to which the released prisoners find residence in
communities where drug dealing is the norm and opportunities for legal employment
are scarce. Education, such as obtaining a GED or participating in job programs
immediately after release, appeared to lead to employment for longer periods of time
indicating that these types of programs should be enhanced and

properly funded. It also appears that adding substance abuse treatment to these
programs would help bring stability to the prisoners since substance abuse is a major
factor in loss of employment after release. As previously discussed, support systems
are very important in preventing substance abuse and encouraging employment
stability. Men who were successful in their reentry tended to be those who had minor
children, had supportive families, and had an affiliation with a faith institution. The
message for corrections offi cials and reentry specialists is that important relationship
ties can be strengthened through increasing opportunities for communication and
visitation while men are in prison, as well as providing support for the families who
provide financial and emotional support for those returning home.

Family members of returning prisoners in Houston, Texas

In this portion of the study interviews were conducted with family members of
returning prisoners. For this study family was defined as “blood or legal relatives,
people you have a child in common with, and significant others or guardians you live
with before you entered prison or state jail this time” (Shollenberger 2009: 2). In this
study the family members are typically female, predominately African-American, and
older than the returning prisoner.

For many family members the release of the prisoner in this study was not the first
time they had experienced such an event. Approximately 30 percent of those
responding to the survey reported having at least one other relative incarcerated at the
time the interview was conducted. As a result, most of the family members knew the
processes involved with incarceration and reentry. Male prisoners returning home
were able to nominate family members to participate in the interviews with
researchers and they chose parents or grandparents first, followed by siblings and
intimate partners. This differs somewhat from female prisoners who tend to choose
children or grandchildren. Overall, the relationships between the family members and
the returning male prisoners were strong and long-standing and the relatives had
maintained contact with the prisoners during their incarceration.

According to previous research, contact with family during incarceration leads to

positive outcomes for returning prisoners. Family members interviewed indicated that
there were often barriers that interfered with their keeping contact with the prisoner.
The barriers cited were distance, transportation, phone policy, prison/jail not in a nice
place to visit, scheduling conflicts, visitation rules, and cost of visiting. Family
members often indicated that the barriers of distance and transportation were often
linked and ability to find transportation for a trip two or more hours was difficult to
locate.

While the family members report that reestablishing relationships was not difficult,
they did report difficulties such as increased anxiety, financial hardships due to adding
financial support of the prisoner, other friends and family pulling away, trouble in
other relationships, and returning relatives had previously stolen from them. They also
report that they supported the prisoner in a variety of ways such as help with housing,
financial support, finding work, child care, and substance abuse treatment.

When asked by the researchers what resources and support would be helpful for
family members of returning prisoners the responses included the following:

Financial support: Family members expressed a need for financial support especially
in the first few weeks after the prisoner returned. They felt that services such as food
stamps, transportation vouchers, help with rent and utility bills, and clothing
assistance for the prisoner would be very helpful.

Counseling: Some family members felt they needed emotional support more than
financial support to help them cope with the reentry of the prisoner. They desired a
range of counseling services such as support groups, mentoring programs for
returning relatives, and family counseling.

Faith and religious support: Some family members said that faith, God, or prayer
was all they needed to cope with the reentry process. Others cited a need for
counseling or other resources to be faith-delivered through a religious organization.

Support for returning relatives: Many family members chose to focus on the needs
of their returning relative and not on their own needs. Specifically, they believed job
placement assistance, substance abuse counseling, mental health services, support
groups, and mentoring by prisoners who had successfully reentered society would be
helpful.

Community perspectives

Researchers conducted semi-structured telephone interviews with service providers,

local advocates, and officials in corrections, parole, probation, policing, and city
government to obtain community perspectives on prisoner reentry. They also
conducted focus groups comprising residents of Houston neighborhoods with the
greatest concentration of returning prisoners.
During the interviews, several challenges were cited by those interviewed.
Community stakeholders believed that finding appropriate housing

is a vital part of successful reentry. They believed that an increase in transitional

housing could be helpful in providing some initial stability to the returning prisoner.
The stakeholders also recognized that finding legal employment was also a problem
because employers often discriminated against returning prisoners. It was suggested
by the stakeholders that education of employers about tax incentives and bonding
programs can support the effort to employ returning prisoners. In addition, they
believed that providing education and skills training for the returning prisoner would
make them more attractive to employers. Also recognized was the need for substance
abuse treatment for reentering prisoners. The stakeholders recognized that treatment
options are often lacking and funding of these options by private and governmental
entities were often problematic.

The respondents recommended an increase in reentry preparation, education, skills

building, substance abuse treatment, and counseling within the prisons. They also
recognized the need to encourage and strengthen the family connections to increase
the chance for success after release from custody. The stakeholders believed that
preparing inmates for release should happen throughout the course of their
incarceration, not just in the few months prior to release.

Many of the residents identified the lack of post-release supervision and support as a
cause of recidivism. The residents believed that the supervision is improving but there
is still a shortage of probation and parole officers to provide the necessary
supervision.

The stakeholders also expressed an interest in seeing local elected officials becoming
more aware of reentry issues and allocating more resources toward addressing the
issue. In the area of nonprofit service providers the respondents felt that the social
service infrastructure in Houston was underdeveloped, overburdened, and unable to
meet the needs of the returning prisoners. They recognized the funding issue for
nonprofits but wanted to see more long-term commitment to the reentry issue. There
was also a belief that there was a need for the involvement of faith institutions and
grassroots community organizations in the reentry process.

In the area of community attitudes, the stakeholders perceived a lack of awareness in

the community regarding the issue of prisoner reentry. They also felt that there was a
general feeling of fear and hostility toward persons who had been incarcerated. It was
also suggested that the opinions of community members depend on personal
experiences with the criminal justice system and with persons who have been
incarcerated. Many thought that involving the community and its leaders in the
reentry process could be helpful in addressing the issues of community attitudes.

While the stakeholders believed that the issues of reentry were primarily the
responsibility of the criminal justice system, there was an interest in increasing the
involvement of local government, nonprofit service providers, and faith- and
community-based organizations in the process.

See:

Brazzell, Diana and Nancy G. La Vigne. (2009) Prisoner Reentry In Houston:

Community Perspectives. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

La Vigne, Nancy G., Shollenberger, Tracey L. and Debus, Sara A. (2009) One Year
out: Tracking the Experiences of Male Prisoners Returning to Houston,
Texas. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Shollenberger, Tracey L. (2009) When Relatives Return: Interviews with Family

Members of Returning Prisoners in Houston, Texas. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Suggested web sources for the reader:

Restorative Justice – www.restorativejustice.org/intro/

American Probation and Parole Association – www.appa-net.org

Prison Policy Initiative – www.prisonpolicy.org

Sentencing Project – www.sentencingproject.org

References

Applegate, B. L., Smith, H. P., Sitren, A. H., and Springer, N. F., 2009. “From the
Inside: The meaning of probation to probationers,” Criminal Justice Review 34(1), pp.
80–95.

Cadora, E. and Swartz, C., 2000. Community Justice Atlas. Center for Alternative
Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES). Unpublished report.

Clear, T. R., Rose, D. R., and Ryder, S. R., 2000. “Coercive Mobility and the
Community: The Impact of Removing and Returning Offenders,” paper prepared for
the Urban Institute Reentry Roundtable, October, Washington DC.
La Vigne, N. G., Brooks, L. E., and Shollenberger, T. L., 2009. Women on the
Outside: Understanding the Experiences of Female Prisoners Returning to Houston,
Texas. Research Report. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Manhattan Institute, 1999. “‘Broken Windows’ Probation: The next step in crime
fighting,” Civic Report 7 (August).

Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., and Earls, F., 1997. “Neighborhoods and Violent
Crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy,” Science 277 (August).

Spiegler, M. D., and Guevremont, D. C., 2003. Contemporary Behavior Therapy.

Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Travis J., Solomon A., and Waul, M., 2001. From Prison to Home: The Dimensions
and Consequences of Prisoner Reentry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 1995. “Jails and Jail Inmates
1993–94,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin NCJ 151651. Washington, DC: US
Department of Justice.

US Department of Justice, 2001. “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000,” Bureau

of Justice Statistics Bulletin NCJ 185989. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice.

Wilson, J. Q. and Kelling, G. L., 1982. “Broken Windows,” Atlantic Monthly 249(3),

pp. 29–38.

Zehr, H., 1989. “Justice: Stumbling toward a Restorative Ideal,” in P. Arthur

(ed.) Justice: The Restorative Vision, New Perspectives on Crime and Justice, no. 7.
Akron, PA: Mennonite Central Committee Office of Criminal Justice.

Further reading

Risk assessment

Zamble, Edward and Quinsey, V. L., 1997. The Criminal Recidivism Process. New
York: Cambridge University Press. A comprehensive review of what is known about
the causes of recidivism.

Public safety

Crawford, A., 1998. Crime Prevention and Community Safety: Politics, Policies, and
Practices. Harlow, England: Longman. A critical assessment of the social and
political context of community-based public safety activity.
Lab, S. P., 1997. Crime Prevention at the Crossroads. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson
Publishing Company. A study of effective techniques for preventing crime.

Tonry, M. and Farrington, D. P. (eds), 1995. Building a Safer Society: Strategic

Approaches to Crime Prevention. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A collection
of comprehensive studies of the effectiveness and usefulness of various approaches to
crime prevention.

Offender re-entry

Maruna, S., 2001. Making Good: How Ex-convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. A study of the ways offenders
change and desist from crime.

Travis, J., Solomon, A., and Waul, M., 2001. From Prison to Home: The Dimensions
and Consequences of Prisoner Reentry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. A review of
the research and statistics on prisoner re-entry, including an assessment of impacts on
family and community.