Community-Based Correctional Treatment: Rationale and Problems

A major theme in the recommendations of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administra tion of Justice (hereinafter referred to as the National Crime Commission) was that the nation's correctional services should place a much greater emphasis upon community-based treatment of offenders. It was asserted that the line between institutional and community treatment should be blurred by releasing offenders on work furloughs and educational levels and by developing halfway facilities designed to allow for resumption of community responsibilities in a gradual and closely supervised fashion. Probation and parole should be greatly increased and strengthened, according to the Commis sion. The findings upon which these recommendations were based concerned both the gross inadequacy of the present cor rectional system and the promising results of recent experi ments in expanded and intensified community treatment. In moving toward the increased use of community treatment, many problems must be overcome, including a lack of research information on the effectiveness of particular techniques; re sistance to needed changes on the part of traditionalist staff and organizational systems; the difficulty of creating new and noncriminal identities for ex-offenders; and the problem of drawing community institutions into the task. The national attention which has been focused upon the needs of the cor rectional field has created an unprecedented opportunity to bring new resources and methods to the solution of these problems.