Traditional and Non-Traditional Methods of Sentencing

Prisons are designed to confine individuals convicted of committing crimes. These facilities are used to rehabilitate offenders while keeping them isolated from the community so they can do no more harm to law abiding citizens. The goal of jails and prisons are to simply keep offenders from committing more crimes while encouraging them to become productive members of society. Traditional forms of corrections consist of prison time, restitution, probation or parole. However, there are some non-traditional methods as well such as alternative sentencing.

For individuals who commit felonies such as murder there’s no negotiating you’re going to prison. There will be no alternatives and if there crime was severe enough the criminal will be sent to prison for life without the possibility of parole. There are three types of prisons. Each prison varies on the severity of the crime committed. These are categorized by the degree of security they provide as well. Minimum security prisons can be classifies as your basic county jail. These are for individuals that have committed victim-less crimes or misdemeanors and are also used as holding cells for offenders awaiting trial or release. Medium and maximum security prisons hold harden criminals and offenders that are serving more time in prison and the level of security is more intense.

Competing theories of corrections such as community service, detention, or work release programs are mostly for less serious crimes or for individuals who are granted parole. Parole is sometimes granted to an offender after a period of time in prison usually after a few years of his or her sentences is served. Parole allows the individual to serve the remainder of his or her time in the community, but under ...

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...r continue their life of crime. If the individual can not handle simple community service or house arrest they for sure would not want to be incarcerated. If jail time can be avoided it would also be cost-effective as well. Prisoners held just in jail alone can cost up to $25,000 a year.

Furthermore, you commit a crime you go to jail; you commit a serious crime you go to prison. Typical incarceration is based on a number of different aspects of the crime. Depending on the severity of the crime a judge determines about how you should be punished, the manner in which it should be done, and the result to be obtained from it. If the judge feels your crime was just inhumane you get life without parole and you will never be released back into the real world. Prisons will continue to be overcrowded until other methods of punishment can demonstrate lower recidivism rates.