In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and supervision of persons who have been convicted of crimes. These functions commonly include imprisonment, parole, and probation. A typical correctional institution is a prison. A correctional system, also known as a penal system, thus refers to a network of agencies that administer a jurisdiction's prisons, and community-based programs like parole, and probation boards. This system is part of the larger criminal justice system, which additionally includes police, prosecution and courts. Jurisdictions throughout Canada and the US have ministries or departments, respectively, of corrections, correctional services, or similarly-named agencies.
Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.
A halfway house is an institute for people with criminal backgrounds or substance use disorder problems to learn the necessary skills to re-integrate into society and better support and care for themselves.
A behavior modification facility is a residential educational and treatment institution enrolling adolescents who are perceived as displaying antisocial behavior, in an attempt to alter their conduct.
A probation and parole officer is an official appointed or sworn to investigate, report on, and supervise the conduct of convicted offenders on probation or those released from incarceration to community supervision such as parole. Most probation and parole officers are employed by the government of the jurisdiction in which they operate, although some are employed by private companies that provide contracted services to the government.
In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC), juvenile detention, juvenile jail, juvenile hall, or more colloquially as juvie/juvy, also sometimes referred as observation home or remand home is a prison for people under the age of majority, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting trial or placement in a long-term care program. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.
The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in North America, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the company's facilities include illegal immigration detention centers, minimum security detention centers, and mental-health and residential-treatment facilities. It also operates government-owned facilities pursuant to management contracts. As of December 31, 2021, the company managed and/or owned 86,000 beds at 106 facilities. In 2019, agencies of the federal government of the United States generated 53% of the company's revenues. Up until 2021 the company was designated as a real estate investment trust, at which time the board of directors elected to reclassify as a C corporation under the stated goal of reducing the company's debt.
The Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility is a maximum-security Indiana Department of Corrections prison for juvenile males between the ages of 12 and one minute before they turn 22. The facility is located in Fall Creek Township, Madison County, southwest of Pendleton. The campus-style facility has an average daily population of 245 males. The Pendleton Facility was established in 2000 with the purpose of "preparing young men for re-entry into society with the necessary skills to avoid further criminal behavior."
The Patuxent Institution is located in Jessup, Maryland one mile east of U.S. Route 1 on Maryland Route 175. It is a treatment-oriented maximum-security correctional facility. With a maximum static capacity of 987 beds, it offers the most diverse services to the most varied male and female offender population in the state, and possibly in the nation. Patuxent Institution is the only institution for sentenced criminals in Maryland that is not part of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Its foundation lies in the Maryland Public General Law, codified as Title 4 of the Correctional Services Article. The predecessor of this statute, Article 31B of the Public General Laws of Maryland, was enacted in 1951.
The Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPS&C) is a state law enforcement agency responsible for the incarceration of inmates and management of facilities at state prisons within the state of Louisiana. The agency is headquartered in Baton Rouge. The agency comprises two major areas: Public Safety Services and Corrections Services. The secretary, who is appointed by the governor of Louisiana, serves as the department's chief executive officer. The Corrections Services deputy secretary, undersecretary, and assistant secretaries for the Office of Adult Services and the Office of Youth Development report directly to the secretary. Headquarters administration consists of centralized divisions that support the management and operations of the adult and juvenile institutions, adult and juvenile probation and parole district offices, and all other services provided by the department.
Functional analysis in behavioral psychology is the application of the laws of operant and respondent conditioning to establish the relationships between stimuli and responses. To establish the function of operant behavior, one typically examines the "four-term contingency": first by identifying the motivating operations, then identifying the antecedent or trigger of the behavior, identifying the behavior itself as it has been operationalized, and identifying the consequence of the behavior which continues to maintain it.
The Minnesota Correctional Facility – Lino Lakes (MCF-LL) is a state prison located in Lino Lakes, Minnesota, USA.
The Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) operates nine prisons, four community release centers and 20 probation and parole offices in seven districts located throughout the state of Idaho. The agency has its headquarters in Boise.
The Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS) is a state agency of Massachusetts. Its Administrative Office is headquartered in 600 Washington Street Boston. The agency operates the state's juvenile justice services.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) is a state agency in Texas, headquartered in the Braker H Complex in Austin.
Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center Program (MJTC) is an intensive mental health intervention for violent and treatment resistant youth in juvenile detention.
Gender responsive approach for girls in the juvenile justice system represents an emerging trend in communities and courts throughout the United States, Australia and Latin America, as an increasing number of girls are entering the juvenile justice system. A gender responsive approach within the juvenile justice system emphasizes considering the unique circumstances and needs of females when designing juvenile justice system structures, policies, and procedures.
Gender-responsive prisons are prisons constructed to provide gender-specific care to incarcerated women. Contemporary sex-based prison programs were presented as a solution to the rapidly increasing number of women in the prison industrial complex and the overcrowding of California's prisons. These programs vary in intent and implementation and are based on the idea that female offenders differ from their male counterparts in their personal histories and pathways to crime. Multi-dimensional programs oriented toward female behaviors are considered by many to be effective in curbing recidivism.
