CORRECTIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, FROM MEDICAL MODEL TO COMMUNITY MODEL
Correctional centres across the globe have increasingly adopted positive changes and best practices to transform former offenders into law-abiding citizens. The changes adopted are in line with the changing goals and objectives of the criminal justice system in handling and transforming convicts. The changes adopted in the correctional facilities are aligned to the correctional purposes of rehabilitation, deterrence, retribution and incapacitation as per the twentieth century.
CORRECTIONS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Corrections in the twentieth century are different from those in the previous century in terms of handling prisoners. In this regard, correctional facilities in the previous century were determined in punishing the prisoners while those in the 20th century are determined to transform prisoners into law-abiding citizens (Mays and Winfred, 2002). Therefore, correctional facilities have adopted best practices, reforms and approaches in handling the prisoners. First, there have been changes and reforms in the sentencing, probation and parole. The probations aim at rehabilitating convicted criminal without jailing them. The adoption of probation has increased with time as offenders are counselled and supervised by probation officers until the can live independently without violating the law. Consequently, there has been a separation of offenders depending on gender, age and needs to improve the quality of life. In there have been juvenile and women-only facilities. The separations have enhances programs such as recreations, vocational training, vocational training, and libraries to empower the prisoners thus transforming to law-abiding citizens. Furthermore, the correctional facilities have had a change in penal policy. The penal policies have changed from the prisons being correctional facilities to institutions built with the foundations of maintaining social order and segregating unwanted individuals. This has reduced the punishment approach to rehabilitation policy. For instance, laws have been passed to restrict and eliminate prison labour as a form of punishment but rather involving prisoners in job training to financially empower prisoners.
FROM MEDICAL MODEL TO COMMUNITY MODEL
Correctional facilities have increasingly replaced the medical model with a community model in the course of reforming prisoners and integrating them in society. The medical model entails at handling and addressing biological, social, psychological, deficiency that is believed to criminal behaviours among people in the society. On the other hand, the community model of correction entails imposing sanctions on adjudicated juveniles and convicted adults in a community or residential setting outside a prison or jail (Kupers, 2015). The move to replace the medical model with the community model has been occasioned by a wide range of advantages and benefits experienced from the change. First, the community model enhances the functional family therapy program that is effective in reforming the youths. The program incorporates family-based prevention and intervention that enables young people to change their ways of life. Consequently, the community model can be adopted in handling mentally ill offenders. The program ensures that mentally ill offenders are handled correctly to reduce recidivism based on their conditions. Moreover, there are community-based treatments that enable young offenders to reside at home as they attend daily services. This process ensures that the youths can recover with time as they interact with the members of the society. Additionally, the community model offers cognitive behavioural therapy based that is concerned with anger management among adults. This program enables the youths to take control of their dysfunctional anger thus reducing recidivism.
In conclusion, changes are regularly adopted in correction to improve, transform and rehabilitating the lives of the offenders. The corrections in the 20th century have adopted the best practices and approaches in rehabilitating and transforming convicts. On the other hand, the replacement of medical model with community models in corrections enables that corrections meet the societal needs of the convicts.
References
Kupers, T. A. (2015). A community mental health model in corrections. Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev., 26, 119.
Mays, G. L., & Winfree, L. T. (2002). Contemporary corrections. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
