Mid-Term Flashcards
A nonincarcerative sanction in which offenders serve all or a portion of their sentence in a community.
Community Corrections
The state in which a defendant has been sentenced by a court after having either pleaded guilty or been found guilty by a judge or jury. Being adjudicated is equivalent to a conviction.
Post-Adjudication
The state in which a defendant has not yet pleaded guilty or been found guilty by a judge or jury. Said defendant is either in a pretrial stage or has been offered deferred adjudication.
Pre-Adjudication
Community supervision of a convicted offender in lieu of incarceration under conditions imposed by a court for a specified period, during which it retains authority to modify those conditions or to resentence said offender if he or she violates those conditions.
Probation
A sentencing philosophy that focuses on consistency for a crime committed, specifying by statute or sentencing guidelines an exact amount or narrow range of time to be served in prison or in a community and mandating a minimum amount of time before an offender is eligible (if at all) for release. Also known as a presumptive, fixed, or mandatory sentence.
Indeterminate Sentencing
A sentencing philosophy that focuses on consistency for a crime committed, specifying by statute or sentencing guidelines an exact amount or narrow range of time to be served in prison or in a community and mandating a minimum amount of time before an offender is eligible (if at all) for release. Also known as a presumptive, fixed, or mandatory sentence.
Determinate Sentencing
Monetary payment deposited with a court to ensure a defendant’s return for the next court date, in exchange for said defendant’s release.
Bail
Court-ordered correctional supervision of a defendant not yet convicted whereby said defendant participates in activities such as reporting, house arrest, and electronic monitoring to ensure appearance at the next court date.
Pretrial Supervision
A spectrum of community supervision strategies that vary greatly in terms of supervision level and treatment capacity, ranging from diversion to shortterm duration in a residential community facility.
Intermediate Sanctions
Any activity or program conducted to prepare prisoners to return safely to a community and to live as law-abiding citizens.
Prisoner Reentry
A program in a minimum-security, community-based or institutional setting for offenders who have spent time in prison and are nearing release. Its focus includes transitioning, securing a job, and reestablishing family connections.
Prerelease Program
Early privileged release from a penal or correctional institution of a convicted offender, in the continual custody of the state, to serve the remainder of his or her sentence under supervision in a community.
Parole
The theory that an offender on community supervision will refrain from committing technical violations and/or new crimes if, after considering the costs and benefits, the consequences for misbehavior are certain and severe enough that the sanctions outweigh the benefits.
Specific Deterrence Theory
A primary goal of the corrections system, and the process in which offenders are exposed to treatment programs and skills training in order to change their thinking processes and behaviors.
Rehabilitation
A theory of rehabilitation that suggests focusing on treating high-risk offenders, matching correctional interventions with criminogenic needs, and implementing treatment according to offenders’ learning styles and personal characteristics.
Risk/Need/Responsivity
Problems, habits, or deficits that are directly related to an individual’s involvement in criminal behavior.
Criminogenic Needs
Various sentencing philosophies and practices that emphasize an offender’s taking of responsibility to repair harm done to a victim and to a surrounding community. It includes forms of victim-offender mediation, reparation panels, circle sentencing, and monetary sanctions.
Restorative Justice
An integrated theory of community supervision that suggests that offender compliance and active participation, along with officer supervision strategies of communication, casework, and leverage are necessary to achieve offender accountability, offender risk/need reduction, and public safety. Change is mediated by offender motivation, parental/significant other support, and officer–client relationship quality.
Participation Process Model
Correctional programs and techniques shown through systematically evaluated research studies to be most effective with offenders.
Evidence-Based Practice
Using stiffer punishment or excessive control for offenders who would ordinarily be sentenced to a lesser sanction.
Net Widening
A return to criminal behavior, variously defined in one of three ways: rearrest, reconviction, or reincarceration.
Recidivism
A monetary penalty imposed arbitrarily at the discretion of a court for an offense.
Amercement
A document issued by a police officer to a juvenile who commits a misdemeanor or status offense that allows the juvenile to complete deferred adjudication or diversion probationary supervision without being formally adjudicated by the juvenile court, in states that allow this practice.
Civil Citation
A recognizance or bond given a court by a defendant before or after conviction, conditioned on his or her being “on good behavior” or on keeping the peace for a prescribed period.
Security
An oral or written request that a court repeal, nullify, or overturn a decision, usually made during or after a trial.
Motion to Quash
An order of a court after a verdict, finding, or plea of guilty that suspends or postpones an imposition or execution of sentence during a period of good behavior.
Suspended Sentence
When an indictment is held in abeyance with neither dismissal nor final conviction, in cases in which the judge wishes to defer adjudication or suspend the sentence.
Laid on File
A Boston bootmaker who was the founder of probation in the United States.
John Augustus
Latin term meaning that the government acts as a “substitute parent” and allows the courts to intervene in cases in which children, through no fault of their own, have been neglected and/or are dependent and in which it is in their best interest that a guardian be appointed for them.
Parens Patriae
An alternative to traditional criminal sentencing or juvenile justice adjudication that provides offenders with a chance to avoid conviction upon successful completion resulting in a dismissal of current charges. Also known as deferred adjudication.
Diversion
Formal written agreement between a state government and local entities that funds counties to implement and operate community corrections programs on a local level.
Community Corrections Acts
A community-supervision philosophy that allows an officer to create therapeutic relationships with clients through counseling and behavior modification, assisting them in living productively in a community.
Casework
Supervision that involves identifying the needs of probationers or parolees and referring them to an appropriate community agency.
Brokerage of Services
A supervision model in which probation or parole officers develop skills and linkages with community agencies in one or two areas only. Supervision under this model is a team effort, each officer utilizing his or her skills and linkages to assist an offender.
Community Resource Management Team Model
A correctional practice based on the concept of just desserts and even-handed punishment. The justice model calls for fairness in criminal sentencing so that all people convicted of a similar offense receive a like sentence. This model of corrections relies on determinate sentencing and/or abolition of parole.
Justice Model
A supervision strategy that emphasizes public safety, accountability, partnerships with other community agencies, within boundaries defined by street intersections or zip code.
Neighborhood-Based Supervision
A community supervision style emphasizing motivational interviewing and meaningful professional relationships between clients and officers in a dual role as a therapeutic change agent and an enforcer.
Criminogenic Needs-Based Supervision
A court imposed sentence that involves a short time in jail, followed by a longer period of probation. Also known as shock incarceration.
Split Sentence
Conditional release to a community under a determinate sentence that is automatic at the expiration of a minimum term of sentence, minus any credited time off for good behavior.
Mandatory Release
Conditional release while still remaining under supervision of an indeterminate sentence, which is granted because members of a parole board have decided that a prisoner has earned the privilege.
Discretionary Release
