Critical Analysis of Chapter 10, 11 and 12 of Exploring Criminal Justice

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Criminal justice has a lot to explore, besides the history of prisons, law society, the police and the history of courts, there is a lot to learn about criminal justice. Criminal justice involves corrections, prisons as places for corrections and how correction is done in the community. A criminal is not only punished but also rehabilitated in order to ensure he or she does not go back to the deviant behaviour. The paper will give a preview on Chapter 10, 11, and 12 of the text ‘Exploring Criminal Justice and The Essentials’ by Robert M. Ragoli, John D. Hewitt and Ann Koloski.

First, chapter ten gives the history of corrections in America. Once one has been prosecuted and convicted, getting into the correction system is the next step. According to chapter ten, correction begun as early as 1800s. By mid-19th, American correction system had reformed to an extent women and men were placed in different correction centres and given different education. The chapter tells about the vocational programs and the acts that were passed since 19th century to date in order to facilitate correction system. An example is the Hawes Cooper Act of 1929 and Ashurst Summners Act passed in 1935 and amended in 1940. The authors have given an over view of the existing correction centres, statistics of the prisons and how effective the correction system have been since 1900s to date.

In chapter 11, the authors give a detailed information on the prison systems. Prison systems have undergone revolution ever since they were established. Initially, prisons were the worst places to send criminals, characterised by mishandling the prisoners and having them in poor conditions (Regoli, Hewitt, & Kosloski, 2016). The authors give details on the reforms that the prisons systems have gone through in order to be at the state which they are today. The characteristics of persons confined in prisons today are better than those of 20th century. The book gives classes of prisons and the prisoners. The type of correctional services offered in the different classes of prisons. The authors go further in giving examples of correctional services with real life cases on how inmates were corrected and how they behaved in prisons. There is number of offenders narrowing down to the number of men and women in prisons. Further, the authors do it well in giving an overview of the activities that happen in the prisons including violence, rape, and stealing. They give examples of these activities including real life events (Regoli, Hewitt, & Kosloski, 2016). Indeed, the prisons are a place for corrections at the same time not a good place.

The third chapter on corrections that is Chapter 12, gives details on corrections in the community. A community is the best place to rehabilitate wrong doers in the society. The authors argue that corrections in the society is less expensive than correction centres such as the prisons and the vocational training centres. In the Chapter they give example of scenarios where corrections in the community has been successful. Probation under supervisions is one of the common correction which has been successful over years. Further, the authors give strengths and weaknesses of the corrections in the community.

Conclusively, the authors do a great job in presenting the history of correction in America. The information is crucial to the audience, that is the citizens, police society and the law society in general for they learn about where America has come from in order to achieve the current situation in the prisons. Also, the authors have arranged the information in a simple way that one can easily scheme and understand. The chapters are well presented and easy to understand.

References

McShane, M. D. (2008). Prisons in America. El Paso: LFB Scholarly Pub. LLC.

Regoli, R. M., Hewitt, J. D., & Kosloski, A. E. (2016). Exploring Criminal Justice. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.