The Future of Community Corrections Is Now

• Author: Faith E. Lutze,Edward J. Latessa,Todd R. Clear,Risdon N. Slate,W. Wesley Johnson
• Published date: 01 February 2012
• Date: 01 February 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1043986211432193
• Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.

432193CCJ28110.1177/1043986211432193Lutze
et al.Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
Article
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice
28(1) 42 –59
The Future of
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DOI: 10.1177/1043986211432193
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Is Now: Stop Dreaming
and Take Action
Faith E. Lutze1, W. Wesley Johnson2, Todd R. Clear3,
Edward J. Latessa4, and Risdon N. Slate5
Abstract
The political, economic, and social context in which community corrections functions
makes it extremely difficult to achieve successful outcomes. The current fiscal crisis,
however, is forcing change as many states can no longer support the cost of our
30-year imprisonment binge. As in the past, community corrections will be expected
to pick up the pieces of an overcrowded and expensive prison system. The authors
argue that community corrections is capable of taking on this challenge and can be
successful if policy makers take action to reduce prison and community supervision
populations, ensure that agencies are structured to proactively support evidence-
based practice, and recognize corrections as a human services profession. The
authors present a number of actions that can be taken to promote a new era of
shared responsibility in corrections that is framed within a human rights perspective
and driven by an ethic of care.
Keywords
correctional policy, community corrections, parole, human rights, ethics
1Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
2University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS, USA
3Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA
4University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
5Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Faith E. Lutze, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Washington State University, P.O. Box
644872, Pullman, WA 99164-4872, USA
Email: lutze@wsu.edu

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Since the political demise of correctional rehabilitation in the 1970s, community cor-
rections has taken on a schizophrenic existence in trying to achieve legitimacy by both
enforcing strict supervision and maintaining the origins of the profession by accom-
plishing reintegration through rehabilitation and social support. The political and phil-
osophical tension between coercion and treatment, policing and social work, and
accountability and support makes community corrections vulnerable to shifting expec-
tations and constant criticism for failing to adequately punish or rehabilitate. These
oftentimes competing goals place community corrections in a conundrum about what
is expected in monitoring offenders against what is actually needed by offenders and
communities. Currently, the burden of success or failure is placed primarily on the
efforts of community corrections officers (CCOs) and offenders and rarely on the
multiple systems that offenders pass through before arriving on a community correc-
tion’s caseload (i.e., public education, social services, courts, prisons).
We argue that it is time to bring community corrections into an era of shared
responsibility that resolves the conflict between oversimplistic punitive approaches
and the complex process of achieving offender reintegration. It is time to stop dream-
ing about what the future of community corrections could be and to start taking action,
for the future of community corrections is achievable now. We have made tremendous
progress since the 1970s in understanding through science and practice what works. It
is time to fully embrace and implement what we know about achieving success in
community corrections and to continue to proactively inform innovation for the future.
Stagnation and business as usual are no longer acceptable options.
Although there are very real challenges confronting community corrections due to
an ongoing political emphasis on punitive policies, the contemporary fiscal crises, and
the existence of distressed communities, these issues should not be used as an excuse
to do nothing. Therefore, just as offenders are held accountable for their behavior and
are expected to reform, we have the same expectation for the policy makers and sys-
tems charged with supervising and caring for offenders. Reform can be achieved
through (a) reducing prison and community supervision populations to manageable
levels, (b) ensuring agencies are structured to proactively participate in and support
evidence-based practice, and (c) recognizing corrections as a human service profes-
sion that supports the professional needs of officers as well as the individual needs of
offenders. These changes to the structure and content of community corrections must
be considered within a human rights framework, driven by an ethic of care and
designed to reduce harm and promote the well-being of all involved.
Achieving Professional
Integrity Through Multilevel Reform
To achieve success we need to seriously rethink corrections as it is currently struc-
tured at the macro level of policy making, the agency level of implementation, and the
individual level of human interaction. It is only through multilevel reforms that sig-
nificant change will occur and be maintained over time. Responsibility for success

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Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice28(1)
needs to be owned by all levels of policy makers—whether residing in the legislature
or working directly with offenders in the community. Across these multiple levels, we
propose in the three sections to follow the actions that can be taken now to success-
fully bring community corrections into a new era of shared responsibility.
Macro-Level Change: Addressing
Mass Incarceration, Racism, and Institutional Isolation
Macro-level challenges often seem overwhelming and impossible to undertake. We
forget, however, that the United States has moved through two major periods of cor-
rectional reform in the past 100 years inspired by philosophy, science, and oftentimes
political and economic turmoil (Christianson, 1998; Gould, 1981; Rothman, 1980). It
is not unreasonable to believe that the current economic crisis that is demanding that
we reevaluate our prison spending will spur a willingness to embrace a new paradigm
to guide policy and practice. Thus, it is within our capacity to end mass incarceration,
act to remedy the biases of our policies and practices, and move beyond working in
isolation.
Action 1: Mass incarceration must be rejected by restricting the use of our pris-
ons for our most serious offenders.
Until the 1970s, we utilized our prison space as a finite resource to be used for
specific offenders who deserved punishment or who were in need of rehabilitation.
Although our intentions may not always have been altruistic in relation to the demo-
graphic characteristics of those incarcerated (Christianson, 1998; Rafter, 1985),
prison populations remained stable over time, through good times and bad, from 1925
to 1973 (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2010). In the 1980s, we began to
utilize our prison space as an infinite resource that could be expanded continuously to
meet capacity without regard to monetary expense or human costs.
It was generally argued that through the incapacitation of our most serious and
repeat offenders, we could reduce crime (DiIulio, 1987; Wilson, 1983). Justified by
this political mantra, we passed legislation that increased the number of people sent
to prison and increased the length of sanctions. These legislative changes quickly
increased the U.S. prison population beyond institutional capacity and obliterated the
long-term stability maintained for decades (Clear & Austin, 2009). In addition, there
is little evidence to suggest that harsher penalties were successful in making signifi-
cant reductions in the crime rate (Clear & Austin, 2009; Petersilia, 2003).
Clear and Austin effectively argue, through what they call the “Iron Law of Prison
Populations,” that mass incarceration can only be addressed by reducing how many
people go to prison and how long they stay there. Reductions in the prison population
can be reached through revising the policies that have led directly to our current cor-
rections population by (a) reexamining how corrections policy is formulated by reserv-
ing prison space for high-risk violent offenders1; (b) eliminating mandatory minimums,

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45
especially for nonviolent crimes, and returning discretion to judges; (c) eliminating
prison as a sanction for technical violations; (d) eliminating community supervision
for low-risk nonviolent offenders; and (e) eliminating most civil penalties attached to
criminal convictions (Clear & Austin, 2009; Mele & Miller, 2005; Petersilia, 2003;
Travis, 2005).
Action 2: All legislations that will result in a criminal sanction or civil penalty
must be evaluated based on their long-term impact on vulnerable populations
and their potential to result in biased outcomes over time.
Broader conceptualizations of mass incarceration must also be considered as they
relate to the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities, men, and the poor in
our corrections population. Currently, in terms of ethnicity, 1 in 45 Whites, 1 in 27
Hispanics, and 1 in 11 Blacks are under some form of state control (Pew Center on
the States, 2009, p. 7). Black individuals in general have a 29% lifetime chance of
serving at least 1 year in prison, compared to Hispanic males (of any race, 16%) and
to White males (5%; Travis, Solomon, &...