Effectiveness of Community Corrections Discussion
The effectiveness of community corrections is measured by the success of the completion rates of the programs designed to reform offenders (Alarid, 2015). Successful completion of a program refers to a situation when an offender has completed all the requirements ordered by the court and has paid the necessary fees. The choice of a program usually depends on the offender’s probability of re-engaging in criminal activities. An offender in community corrections can either be classified as active, consecutive, inactive, successful, or unsuccessful. In order to determine whether the correction procedure was effective or not several steps can be implemented.
First, one should collect necessary data that is related to the correction process. The program is deemed to be successful if all the steps are completed. A low-risk offender can be subjected to home detention under the terms of a program. That is, there is a high probability that the offender will complete the task. This is an example of a successful case of community corrections.
As for high-risk offenders, in order to further assess the effectiveness of community corrections, a study can be undertaken on the completion rates of the allocated programs (Alarid, 2015). Community control, as a component, might be extremely effective in this case. Thus, it is important to assess the program’s completion rate to determine its effectiveness. Offenders tend to comply with community control because of the desire to be accepted back.
Moreover, the effectiveness of the program can also be measured using the rate of recidivism (Alarid, 2015). This is whereby an offender is monitored to see if they are likely to repeat the crime. If the offender is rearrested or reconvicted for another or the same crime, it means that the community corrections program is not successful, and, therefore, there is a need to reconsider the approach used to bring change to offenders.
References
Alarid, L. F. (2015). Community-based corrections (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.