ABSTRACT
The American correctional system consists of four major components including jails, prisons, probation, and parole. These components are interdependent, working together to protect society and carry out the criminal sentence. Because corrections is a matter of public policy, its goals and activities are often dependent on which political ideology is dominant at the time.[1] As such, correctional policy has vacillated between the liberal agenda of rehabilitation and the more conservative approaches of deterrence and incapacitation. For the past 25 years, the latter has won out with “get-tough” policies that have contributed to unmanageable growth in the correctional population. Most of a correctional administrator's time is devoted to managing this growth and to developing practices that promote the objective and efficient allocation of resources. This entry will first review the evolution of correctional policy and discuss the consequences of getting tough on crime. It will then describe four correctional trends that have emerged to manage the ever changing and growing population of offenders.
