Corrections

The Commission recommends specific standards in pursuit of the achievement of six major goals for the improvement of the American correctional system. The American correctional system today appears to offer minimum protection for the public and maximum harm to the offender. The National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, in its report on corrections, has proposed about 140 standards designed to change that situation. The standards spell out in detail where, why, how, and what improvements can and should be made in the corrections segment of the criminal justice system. This report is a reference work for the correctional professional as well as for the interested layman. Among its goals, the commission urges that disparities in sentencing be removed and justice in corrections be upheld by measures guaranteeing offenders' rights during and after incarceration. The scope of corrections can, and should, be narrowed by diverting many juveniles and sociomedical cases (alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes, and the mentally disturbed) to noncorrectional treatment programs and by decriminalizing certain minor offenses such as public drunkenness and vagrancy. Another goal states that probation should become the standard criminal sentence, retaining confinement chiefly for dangerous offenders and releasing a majority of offenders to improved and extended community-based programs. Corrections should undergo a planned integration into the total criminal justice system with each state unifying all correctional functions and programs for adults and juveniles within its executive branch.