The Scope and Purpose of Corrections: Exploring Alternative Responses to Crowding

Current “social war” criminal justice policies lack rational planning and have contributed to the crowding crisis within the correctional system and to state and local fiscal crises. They have also generated an immense expansion in the scope of correctional control. However, proposals to reduce prison crowding through greater reliance on community corrections are more costly than commonly assumed. The authors propose a sanctions budget for corrections that requires choices among cost-effective policies based on available resources, intermediate sanctions, and explicit correctional objectives, including the restoration of rehabilitative purpose to the traditional prison.