DIVERSITY IN PRISON SERVICES

In what ways can the prison services meet the needs of diverse communities?

In what ways can the prison services meet the needs of diverse communities?

Introduction

The law of 22nd June 1987 on the public prison service has, in its first article; the provision that the public prison service should participate in the enforcement of judgments and criminal convictions and to maintain public safety. It promotes social reintegration of persons entrusted by the judicial authority. It is organized to ensure the individualization of sentences. In a decision dated January 20th, 1994, the Constitutional Council said that the execution of custodial sentences in correctional or criminal was intended, "not only to protect society and ensure punishment of the condemned, but also to promote amendment thereof and prepare his eventual reintegration." In this perspective, social work in the prison has a specificity that is essentially characterized by:

The legal framework in which social workers are involved: the execution of criminal judgments restriction or deprivation of liberty;

A specific action to be implemented for helping people to overcome the difficulties they face, facilitating their integration or reintegration without recurrence in social life by taking into account their social, economic difficulties and their family.

Social workers are involved in closed environment like in an open environment based on common principles that affect the individualization of punishment and rehabilitation mission. However, with rare exceptions, their methods of intervention have never been a common and harmonized approach.

Experimentation unified services, such as the development of devices preparation for release, showed that these common intervention methods yet allowed not only better meeting the requirements of the integration of persons placed in police hands, but also providing greater clarity of the action of integration services, both in open than in closed.

Reform of the prison service and probation, because it combines the activities of services in open and secure is the opportunity today to be more specific guidance on methods of public intervention supported (Macpherson, 1999, pp. 90-145).

Moreover, public policy, prevention of crime, and creating new justice alternatives to incarceration during the 1980s has significantly reoriented the action of social workers at the prison. While the individual relationship and the long term was until the middle of the action "educational" social workers, guidance have increasingly committed to working in tandem with partners contributing to missions insertion , and to confine their operations to more comprehensive policies. These two approaches, far from being mutually exclusive, are complementary (Edgar, 2007, pp. 268-292).

Discussion and Overview

For several years, guidelines have been given to expedite the judicial treatment of delinquency, it is essential that all the measures imposed by the courts are implemented as quickly as possible. Despite efforts, it is not uncommon for some alternative sentences are supported for several months after delivery of their sentences. Early intervention services after the commission of the offense is such as to effectively fight against recidivism by making more visible and legible action of justice for both the accused and the victim or his ...