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THE CORRECTIONAL CLIENT: CHAPTER 6
PRISONERS ARE NOT!! all alike
One problem is deciding who client is. my view: not all "clients" alike,
and this shapes how we "treat" people. Comes back to "goals."
Do prisons get crooks off the streets?
Of: 1,000 crimes: (SEE THE FIGURE IN CHAPTER 6)
Roughly 540 reported to police (book says 500)
65 arrested (book, for easy calculations, says 100)
36 convicted
17 sentenced to custody
3 sentenced to prison: = 0.3 percent go to jail
(NOTE: Book's figures are even lower: of 1,000 serious crimes (felonies)
18 adults incarcerated, 5 juveniles)
(REMEMBER THE INDEX CRIME: murder, sexual assault, robbery, physical
assault, burglary, larceny/theft, auto theft, arson
who commits crimes?
1. young, male, poor for street crime.
2. for other crimes, most anybody (explain)
Are most crooks violent?
Arrests:
24 for public order
17 pct for drugs
8 pct for larceny-theft
7 pct for Assault
6 pct for forgery-fraud
6 pct for property
Types of offenders:
1. situational
2. career crimial
3. sex offenders
(rapists, child molesters, flashers, etc)
4. "service" offenders (prostitutes, etc)
5. druggies
(includes alchohol, but not in book)
6. mentally ill offender (and mentally handicapped)
7. HIV/AIDS offender
8. (distinguish, which book doesn't: cultural offender)
(eg, students drinking, etc)
Classifying offenders:
1. why do it?
2. problems
a) socio-political pressures
b) inaccurate data
c) ideology/defs
3. an idea from book:
classify by likelihood to repeat rather than type
Impact of 'client characteristics' on prisons:
1. prisoners--who goes, who has power, so what?
2. prison culture: adaptation/coping strats, and how
this shapes prison life for all (gds, etc)
3. prison crowding--more stress on pun = more prisoners
4.severity of punishment (more or less lenient?)
(but probably much younger now---gangs, etc
some added notes on determinate sentencing:
--about 300 still under old law some evidence that
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