The main question for this assignment is the following:

Can recidivism be used to measure the success or failure of a community corrections program?

Using 100 words or more, please respond to the following post from your classmate. Elaborate whether you agree or disagree with the post and why or why not.

Classmate’s post about the success of a community corrections program:

Community correction programs are programs that monitor offenders in the community without receiving a jail or prison sentence , or to finish off a sentence upon being released from prison (National Institute of Justice, 2017). A couple of examples of community correction programs would be probation and parole. Probation is where an offender does not receive jail or prison time, but is supervised by a probation officer for the amount of time administered by the judge. Parole is also a community correction program under supervision of a parole officer for an individual who is released from prison and is to serve the rest of his or her sentence in the community, but under supervision. Recidivism is the tendency to relapse back into previous behavior.

Can recidivism be used to measure the success or failure of community correction programs? Absolutely. If you think about it, crimes committed are usually put into the system whether it be just police contact or an individual gets arrested for a crime. This keeps track of names and the crimes committed by the individual. It also provides the sentencing one is given for their crimes. When going through the reports, if multiple individuals keep committing crimes and have already been through community correction programs, it is safe to say that it may be failing. If you were to switch it around, you can say it is succeeding. It is to be said that throwing individuals straight into jail or prison, especially first time offenders, the individual can have an increase in behaviors and recidivism (Youth.Gov, 1999-2008).