The Social Reality of Crime by Wilhelm Roepke

Author:Wilhelm Roepke [Roepke, Wilhelm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351473859
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Penal and

Correctional

Administration

The application of criminal definitions is not completed with the sentencing of the convicted offender. Once a sentence has been decided upon, it must be administered. The administration of the sentence involves the same types of processes that operate in all other stages of applying criminal definitions. Thus, administration of the sentence is influenced by such community and organizational factors as community expectations, public reaction, and the occupational organization and ideology of the legal agents. Ultimately, within this social and cultural framework, the fate of the criminally defined is determined by the evaluations of those assigned the task of administering criminal sentences.

Conceptually and practically the administration of the criminal sentence can be divided into orientations that emphasize either the punishment or the treatment of offenders. The legal policies themselves provide a general orientation to the administration of sentences, and differ from one jurisdiction to another in the relative emphasis placed on penal and correctional objectives. It is in the administration of sentences that the fulfillment of these orientations becomes evident.1

A major development in the system of criminal justice in the United States has been the growing emphasis on correction. Over the last fifty years probation and parole have been used increasingly, the juvenile court was created, treatment and prevention programs were developed, and treatment was established within the prison. All these signal the rise of “the rehabilitative ideal.”2 However, the results of this rise have not been as humanitarian in outcome as intended. In fact, the schemes resulting from the rehabilitative ideal have often led to an increase in penal measures. Many of the original aims of the ideal have been debased and practices have been instituted which conflict with individual rights. As a consequence, in the administration of criminal sentences the separate orientations of punishment and treatment have not been as disparate as might have been expected.

Whatever the general objectives of penal and correctional policy, the criminal sentence may be served and completed in a number of ways. The convicted offender may be placed on probation, imprisoned, given therapy, educated, executed, or paroled. Or attempts may be made to prevent criminal offenses through the establishment of community prevention programs. These efforts will be discussed in relation to the social reality of crime.

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