Community Corrections Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Community Corrections - Essay Example The National Institute of Justice created and funded a program and devised a multi-year and multi-site federal effort; The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative. This initiative was created in confidence of improving reentry outcomes and evaluating this with five factors; criminal justice, employment, education, health, and housing. The program initially began in 2003, allowing the national Institute of Justice to track the success of the program (National Institute of Justice, 2012) Sixteen programs were divided among 14 states and included 12 adult and 4 juvenile facilities. The purpose of the program was not starting a new program but to increase funding and resources available to existing programs. Partnerships were formed between supervision agencies, correction agencies, state and local level agencies and any faith based agency’s that have approved programs with the Department of Corrections. Participants were each considered a violent offender, each below the age of 35, and represented all three stages of reentry; in prison, post release with supervision and post-supervision. The evaluation of this program sought to define how and if the program could lead to more integrated services among agencies, to what extent were participants in this program receiving services as compared to those who were not in the program and did the outcomes and benefits far exceed the cost of the program (Lattimore, & Steffey, 2009, p Es-5). In February of 2012 a final report was released with the findings of this study and recommendations for this community corrections program and initiative. Prisoner Reentry Services The program focused on 12 different reentry factors that were identified as crucial pre-release. These factors were known to be contributive to the success of the offender once released. The offender should have a case manager, who has assessed his /her needs, a reentry plan; the offender should have completed some programs while incarcerated; d id the offender attempt or successfully achieve this? Were life skills evaluated and any life skills education courses taken or available, did the offender take part in any prerelease employment services, mental health treatment or substance abuse treatment should have been available and provided to the offender, were personal relationship skills developed during incarceration?, Attitude counseling related to criminal thinking and behavior provided, were anger management programs utilized, and was the offender able to receive a GED or other education during incarceration (Lattimore, Barrick, Cowell, Dawes, Steffey, Tueller, & Visher, 2012, p Es-2). Those who participated in the program had longer times between arrests and fewer arrests after release from the program across all demographics. Those services associated with a longer time period before being arrested again were personal relationship counseling, criminal thinking and behavioral counseling, anger management and a solid re entry plan. These conclusions maintain the popular theory that personal development and programs that promote individual change may be more useful and successful than those which promote practical skills. This was true of female, males and juvenile offenders. Needs assessments and evaluations, reentry plans and participation in a reentry program, employment counseling, and criminal attitude and thinking counseling had no affects in any of the three groups on

Write an essay that identifies and discusses the many selective

Write an that identifies and discusses the many selective pressures leading to bipedalism in our ancestors and us - Essay Example While habitual bipedalism does not seem like the most effective and fastest form of walking and running, it portends various advantages for hominids over specific specialized quadrupedal forms. Although the reason why early hominins took a bipedal stance is not entirely clear, majority of these hypotheses propose the importance of selection pressures based on the environment in driving bipedal evolution (Sarmiento 62). As climatic conditions resulted in the recession of forests, hominins started to move out of the forests into the grassland savannas where it was essential to assume bipedalism to aid in survival. The postural feeding hypothesis seeks to assert the fact that a shared postural specialization and adaptation of apes, as well as the arboreal postures of food gathering involving vertical climbing and arm-hanging, are adequate enough to have been a selective pressure encouraging bipedalism in hominids (Sarmiento 63). The anatomy of both the australopithecine and the behavior of chimpanzees are the major points that inform this model of selective pressures towards bipedalism. For instance, at least 80% of the time that chimpanzees spend in a bipedal stance is when they are feeding, of which they use arm hanging to stabilize their posture at least 90% of the time in terminal branches of the trees, while 52% of arm-hanging occurs in the trees’ central parts (Sarmiento 63). For australopithecines, their torso form has adaptations to arm-hanging, which may infer that australopithecines adapted to selective pressures requiring arboreal fruit gathering. This specialized and early m ode of bipedalism evolved to become habitually bipedal much later. On the other hand, the behavioral model as an explanation for selection pressures resulting in hominid bipedalism concentrates on mechanisms of social behavior that influenced birthrate and survivorship. Human