CORRECTIONS AND SENTENCES

Corrections and Sentences



Corrections and Sentences

Introduction

Prisons and Detention center in the US are managed under severe authority of both federal and state governments by way of rectifications are a synchronized power under the Constitution of the United States. The incarnation is one of the foremost kinds of punishments for committing severe crime in the United States. Less severe criminals, including those convicted of misdemeanors can be sentenced to a short term in a local jail or with alternative forms of sanctions such as community corrections (halfway house), probation and / or restitution.

Corrections

The department of correction includes the government agency that is accountable for the maintenance of halfway house, jail, prison, detention center, and rehabilitates. They usually perform two functions first, by imprisoning criminals and keeping them away from further crimes. Second, they rehabilitate the criminals so that they may not perform these cries again. Accordingly, corrections play a significant function in lessening the rate of recidivism (Braswell, Michael, Tyler, Larry, 1998).

Probation & Parole

Probation and parole are responsible for the supervision of more than 5 million adult offenders in the United States. As the most common disposition in the United States for felony convictions, probation is a sentence in lieu of incarceration that monitors people under conditions of release. The two types of probation conditions are mandatory and special. Mandatory conditions are defined by state or federal statutes and applied to every individual sentenced to probation. These conditions generally include not owning or carrying a weapon, reporting to a probation officer on a schedule that is determined by the officer at intake, leaving jurisdiction only with the judge's knowledge and approval, allowing unannounced home visits by the officer, and remaining free of arrests during the probation period. Special conditions are imposed by the judge during sentencing and applied to the particular circumstances of the case. They can include participation in treatment for alcohol or drug abuse, the payment of fines, the obtaining of mental health services, and earning a General Equivalency Diploma (Champion, Dean, 1996).

Parole is not a sentence; rather, it is the extension of a prison into the community and under the supervision of the parole authority, which is a branch of the prison system. Prisoners are eligible for parole after they have served a minimum number of years of their sentence as dictated by state statutes and the discretion of the judge. A parole board reviews their crimes, their criminal histories, and their behaviors in prison to decide whether the prisoners can be supervised safely in the community. After serving only a portion of their sentence, prisoners can also be released automatically by the prison administration for good behavior, which involves observing prison rules. In a common formula, prisoners are given 1 day off of the sentence for every day of good behavior. The conditions of parole supervision are set by the releasing body and are similar to the mandatory and special conditions of probation ...