Final Exam 10 11 12 13 14 Chapter 10 Decentralizing Corrections 1960 s 1970 s Nature of Society o 1960 s and 1970 s are best known for their social activism civil rights and welfare policies Decentralization Movement o The crisis of legitimacy in America intuitions led to increased recognition and rights for incarcerated offenders fueled the decentralization of corrections movement o Critics believed that prisons mental hospitals and orphanages were resistant to reform and improvement o The prison research of Clemmer Sykes Irwin Cressey and Giallombardo supplied a foundation for decentralization efforts Development of Decentralization Movement o Issue of crime and what to do about it became a signature political issue with the presidential campaign o The national government was caught up in a war mentality against domestic social ills and foreign enemies and the response was the massive mobilization of national resources Therefore the federal government s response to crime was found in the application of war metaphor in the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 o Safe Streets Act of 1968 o Passed in order to launch the nation wide implementation of decentralized reforms and other presidential task force recommendations o Quick action that would demonstrate its dedication to effective crime policies o Under the purview of the Justice Department provided a major grant in aid program to assist states and local government in their efforts to effectively confront crime o The first step was to develop a comprehensive procedure for dealing with state and local crime problems that incorporated the numerous recommendations of the task force The procedures involved a state and local fund matching requirement under the administration of LEAA o Centerpieces of federal funding of penal form initiatives diversion deinstitutionalization and community corrections o Before the Safe Streets act a small grant in aid program created in 1965 was charged with assisting state and local law enforcement o Law Enforcement Assistance Administration LEAA o Established by the Safe Streets Act o Implemented a national strategy for waging America s war on crime o Abolished in 1980 by Congress combined with the nothing works conclusion and questionable record of LEAA sponsored correctional reforms o Office of Law Enforcement Assistance OLEA o Created by the attorney general and over the three year operation 20 million dollars were awarded in grants o Did not have a specific congressional mandate to guide it s funding decisions but demonstrated the federal government s commitment to doing something about the problem of crime without increasing federal control over state and local government o President s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice o Established by President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965 o Organized into a series of task forces that dealt with such crime problems as organized crime drugs and crime and components of the criminal justice system including police courts penology and juvenile justice o By 1967 the commission more than 500 professionals completed it s assignments which resulted in 9 different reports on specific crime problems and aspects of the administration of criminal justice o The Challenge of Crime In A Free Society Various task force results were integrated into a series of 200 conclusions and recommendations Promoted the view that crime in America will not be remedied by merely expanding the capacity of the criminal justice system Because of the negative effects associated with labeling by the criminal and juvenile justice systems reform efforts should be directed toward the development and implementation of various alternative prejudicial dispositions Prejudicial dispositions handling cases unofficially through the use of various non institutional responses to law breaking Such as diversion deinstitutionalization and various other community based programs o In contrast to the assumption guiding penal reform the President s Commission concluded that the infusion of more resources for the purpose of expanding correctional services would not result in more effective individualized treatment or offender rehabilitation o Argued that individual treatment and rehabilitation goals were unrealistic expectations and said it was difficult to develop effective offender treatment programs mostly because of the lack of understanding of the causes of crime delinquency o Commission s Conclusion Until the field of human behavior develops well beyond it s current stage sufficient understanding is not likely to be provided Crime and deviance are patterned behaviors resulting from a variety of societal influences that are beyond the reach of probation officers correctional counselors and psychiatrists Programs aimed at avoiding the system all together and diverting the offenders away from the criminal justice system were provided by LEAA funding Beliefs Ideals o More is better is viewed as detrimental and dubious o There s a call for less state intervention and more community based strategies o Wanted to replace the formal processing of offenders with various informal and preferably voluntary forms of community treatment community non profit for profit agencies volunteer organizations and various partnerships between local government and other non government entities o Labeling theory Justifying Decentralization o Popularized during the 1960 s and 1970 s o Argues that interaction with the criminal justice system actually can create intensify and perpetuate criminal behavior o Focused on the damaging behavior of the justice system rather than on the illegal behavior of the offender o Theoretical logic The state labels and stigmatizes offenders thus subjecting them to criminal associations that in turn make criminals careers more likely o Dramatization of Evil Frank Tannenbaum is credited for providing the first statement of labeling theory through the dramatization of evil The dramatization of evil is initiated in response to acts of normal youthful misbehavior such as playing baseball in the street and hitting a neighbor s window The process of making the criminal is a process of tagging defining identifying emphasizing describing It becomes a way of evoking the traits that are complained of o Tannenbaum identified several justice system consequences that later provided a basis for diversion deinstitutionalization and other community based efforts He