About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


28 American J. Crim. Just. 1 (2003-2004)

handle is hein.journals/acnjrlocm28 and id is 1 raw text is: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE (SOMETIMES) UGLY TRUTHS: AMERICAN PENAL GOALS AND PERSPECTIVESt RICHARD TEWKSBURYtt University of Louisville MATTHEW T. DEMICHELE University of Kentucky INTRODUCTION Currently, the criminal justice system is caring for and supervising, in some capacity, nearly 7 million adults. This represents more than a three-fold increase in adult correctional supervision since 1980. This growth should not surprise any of us working in, with, or around the criminal justice system. In order to meet the growing organizational de- mands this scope imposes, we are scrambling to create innovative strat- egies and practices and, therefore, hopefully influencing changes in both the formal and informal goals of the criminal justice system. To be sure, most criminal justice practitioners and scholars are familiar with the ongoing philosophical debate regarding correctional goals; on the simplest level pitting rehabilitation against retribution. This philosophi- cal debate reaches to the heart of correctional processes as policy is shaped around such thought and translates into everyday practices for correctional staff. Interesting about this recent correctional population growth are consequences of policies geared toward expanding the reach of the criminal justice system. These include: how the police must arrest more people, the courts process larger numbers, prisons and jails incarcerate ever more Americans, and community correctional agencies that are both over-worked and under-funded. According to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (2001), law enforcement officers made slightly less than 14 million arrests in 2001, the U.S. District Court terminated t An earlier version of this paper was presented by the first author as part of the Presidential Address to the Southern Criminal Justice Association, September 24, 2003 in Nashville, Tennessee. ?t Direct all correspondence to: Richard Tewksbury, Department of Justice Admin- istration, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292. Email: tewks@louisville.edu. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Vol. 28 No. 1, 2003 © 2003 Southern Criminal Justice Association