Title: Correcting Corrections: Missouri's Parallel Universe
Series: Sentencing & Corrections: Issues for the 21st Century (Research in
Brief)
Author: Dora Schriro
Published: National Institute of Justice, May 2000
Subject: Recidivism, inmate programs, and inmate education programs
19 pages
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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

Sentencing & Corrections: Issues for the 21st Century
Papers From the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections
No. 8

Correcting Corrections: Missouri's Parallel Universe
by Dora Schriro

Prisons are "total institutions"--organizations in which officials decide when,
where, and with whom prisoners will live, work, eat, and play. Such
comprehensive control serves various management aims but disserves the goal
of preparing prisoners to live in the community, where they must be responsible
for all the decisions, however important and mundane, that affect their lives.
Recognizing the disconnect between life inside and outside prison, the Missouri
Department of Corrections overhauled its approach to prison management to
improve correctional outcomes. The new strategy, "Parallel Universe," is
premised on the notion that life inside prison should resemble life outside prison
and that inmates can acquire values, habits, and skills that will help them
become productive, law-abiding citizens. 

Of the more than 27,000 inmates in Missouri's prisons, about 600 (less than 3
percent) have been sentenced to life--or death. Only this small group will
remain in a correctional institution for the rest of their lives. The vast majority
will be released to the community. Since more than 97 percent of all State
prisoners will return home, confinement should be much more than a time and
place for incapacitation. In Missouri, it has become an opportunity for staff to
share responsibility for prerelease preparation with the offenders who will be
released. The parallel universe transfers a measure of power from prison
managers to prisoners in a process that achieves compliance through strategies
focused internally, not externally imposed.

Why a parallel universe?

Missouri's parallel universe offers a better way to influence offender behavior
than do other models of offender management. Criminal thinking and behavior
are largely egocentric: Offenders tend to focus on what they want, rationalizing
their misconduct, understating its effects, and often discounting social norms and
community values. In conventional prison management, control is the major
management tool. The level of control eliminates any opportunity for prisoners
to make decisions and be held accountable. Avoiding punishment becomes
many prisoners' primary preoccupation, a pastime scarcely conducive to
learning the skills and internalizing the underlying values necessary to function in
the world outside.

In Missouri, offenders are engaged full time in activities paralleling those of the
outside world. The structure of prison life has been reengineered to require that
they make decisions and be accountable for them. Their decisions affect
employment in prison as well as other conditions of confinement. They also
affect employability after release and, in other ways, their lives in the
community. Because prisoners are prepared for release throughout their
confinement, they no longer face an abrupt transition that leaves them ill
equipped for the real world.

Correctional systems as bureaucratic organizations 

Missouri's decision to revamp prison management can be best understood in
the context of the structure of conventional correctional systems. Correctional
agencies are bureaucratic organizations--hierarchical, with decisionmaking
flowing from top to bottom. In each agency, responsibility for each function is
demarcated by rank and further divided between uniformed and civilian
personnel. Offenders also have a place in the hierarchy: They are at the bottom.

Correctional agencies are a particular type of bureaucratic organization. They
have been called "total institutions" by sociologist Erving Goffman,[1] who
described them as sharing characteristics modified only slightly to serve different
regimented populations--the mentally disabled, the physically infirm, convicted
felons, the military, and religious orders. Regardless of the population, the
purpose is the same: To maintain as much control as much of the time as
possible over all "inmates."

In the community, people choose where and with whom they live, work, and
recreate. In the course of a day, most people have an opportunity for success in
one or more aspects of life. In the total institution of the prison, the
administration makes those choices. All activities are conducted in one place
under one authority, and in each phase of the inmates' day they are in the
company of others with whom they do not choose to associate. Unlike those
who live in the community, inmates are given little chance to succeed.[2]

Civilian and uniformed personnel alike are authorized to sanction inmates
whenever they fail to conform to the schedule or to any other expectations.
Introduction to rules, schedule, and staff occurs at admission, when all
conventional means of identification--drivers' licenses, proof of voter
registration, credit cards--are exchanged for a number plus one or more
classification scores denoting risk to the public and personal needs. Street
clothes are replaced with prison-issued uniforms in colors and styles easily
distinguishable from those of staff or visitors. Hair is cut and facial hair
removed; access to grooming products is limited. The inmates' loss of articles
that communicate the sense of self to others does not mean they have lost that
sense of self. Their "presenting culture" continues to inform inmates'
decisionmaking throughout their incarceration.[3] Sublimated but never
abandoned, it continues to operate covertly unless modified.[4] 

Inmates' status or standing is skewed. During admission, inmates are issued all
property they will be permitted to own while confined. Schedules vary little by
custody level and quality of conduct. Opportunity for community service is
curtailed for all but a few low-risk offenders. In calculating the presumptive
release date, good time is credited only at intake. While opportunities to
advance standing are rare, inmates can lose status--by property restrictions,
temporary punitive segregation, or loss of good time--because prisons tend to
reward bad conduct and ignore good conduct. 

Bureaucracies promote efficiency

As bureaucratic organizations, correctional systems achieve efficiency in
distinctive ways. The staff-to-offender ratio is as great as 1 to 150. Because
there are many inmates with special needs and so few staff to address them,
inmates are often managed in blocks, not as individuals. They are moved as
blocks, housed as blocks, fed as blocks. The chief staff activity is surveillance,
not individualized assistance. To enhance control by a small staff over large
groups of unwilling inmates, conventional systems prescribe roles for both
offenders and employees. The rules typically restrict interactions that resemble
ordinary social intercourse between officers and offenders, which reduces the
likelihood that they will view one another as individuals, much less sympathetic
ones. 

In the name of efficiency, employees are also strictly regulated. Correctional
system management is paramilitary. The chain of command offers limited
opportunities for correctional officers to make decisions that will improve their
standing. In the same way as number of years can move up inmates' time of
release, for line staff career advancement is based largely on tenure. As with the
offender population, for employees the incentive for extra effort is largely
extrinsic. Given the large numbers of inmates whom they manage at great social
distance, it is difficult for correctional employees to find much intrinsic
satisfaction in their work. This tends to affect the public's perception of
correctional staff, and correctional officers in particular, unjustly stereotyping
them. 

Bureaucracies do not promote effectiveness

An organization is effective to the extent it is an open system continuously
interacting with its environment. The total institution of the prison almost always
inadequately deals with environmental complexities because it is a closed
system. Isolating prisoners from the public in facilities far removed from
population centers, the prison releases people ill prepared to reenter the
community.

In the world outside, people develop a sense of self and establish standing
through work, community service, and citizenship. Work is the primary way
people support themselves and is a means of self-expression. For prisoners it is
different. Their basic needs are met by the facility, and self-expression is
prohibited. The usual motive to work is lacking and its ordinary rewards
denied. On the outside, volunteering in the community is a way people
demonstrate concern for their neighbors and neighborhoods in nonwork hours.
In prison, there is no unscheduled leisure time, and any opportunity for
community service is available only to small numbers of low-risk felons. On the
outside, people have civic responsibilities--most notably, voting. Prisoners
experience "civil death" and are not allowed to vote, at least as long as the
sentence lasts. 

Operating this way means lost opportunities. Because the prison is not adept at
distinguishing criminal from noncriminal relationships, it prevents normal social
interaction. Prisoners are prevented from cultivating relationships that might
reduce the public's fear of crime or increase the possibility of forgiveness. The
divide between life inside and outside prison, symbolized by stone walls and
razor ribbon fences, separates prisoners from the citizens who authorize these
institutions, the taxpayers who fund their operations, and the stakeholders who
monitor them. Not only is contact with citizens in general limited, but so too is
contact between inmates and their families and between inmates and the
community. This is so although ex-offenders' success is based in some
significant measure on reconciling felons, their families, and those in the
community who fear the offenders' return.

The prison as a total institution impedes public safety 

If the total institution of the prison produces ex-offenders whom the public
values--people who reside in the community in a civil and productive manner--it
does so infrequently and almost accidentally. The prison uses two correctional
models, the restraint/retributive and the rehabilitative, that are remarkably
similar to one another. Neither offers offenders realistic opportunities to
practice decisionmaking. The restraint/retributive model uses surveillance by
uniformed staff who punish prisoners for untoward actions. The rehabilitative
model relies on surveillance by treatment staff who punish prisoners for
untoward intentions. Neither approach promotes learning skills associated with
civility and productivity. The retributive model restricts all skills acquisition, and
the rehabilitative model assumes skills acquisition alone suffices. The
consequences are significant. Short-term goals--care, custody, control--may be
met, but long-term goals--humane confinement and adequate prerelease
preparation--may be impeded. 

The reason is straightforward. Offenders who acquire literacy, employability,
and sobriety skills may not understand why these skills are essential. The rules
and regulations of corrections and its approach to work and civic involvement
discourage critical thinking and personal responsibility. Even inmates who
unfailingly follow prison officials' directives often encounter difficulty as
ex-offenders. Many have been "colonized" and continue to heed others'
directions, whether good or bad, after release. They have not internalized the
values underlying civil, productive conduct.

Components of the parallel universe 

The parallel universe attempts to make the correctional system an effective
organization--one that interacts with the changing environment outside. It
presupposes a system whose requirements and rewards are like those of the
"real world." The goal is to cultivate in offenders the skills that yield civil,
productive conduct. Essentially, the parallel universe is a corrections-based
reentry program.

Prisoners in Missouri make choices and assume responsibility for decisions that
have real-life ramifications. They learn to recognize community expectations
and reconcile them with their own attitudes. They practice making decisions that
do not contravene security in prison and that will enhance public safety on their
release. In short, they make the same choices as other Missouri citizens for
prosocial, productive conduct. In so doing, they can acquire what criminologist
James Q. Wilson called a "moral sense" to remain crime free all their life.[5]

The parallel universe has four interactive expectations or opportunities. First,
every offender is engaged during work and nonwork hours in productive
activities that parallel those of free society. In work hours, offenders go to
school and work and, as applicable, to treatment for sex offenses, chronic
mental health problems, and drug and alcohol dependencies. In nonwork hours
they participate in community service, reparative activities, and recreation.
Second, every offender must adopt relapse prevention strategies and abstain
from unauthorized activities, including drug and alcohol consumption and sexual
misconduct. Third, most offenders can earn opportunities to make choices and
are held accountable for them. Fourth, offenders are recognized for good
conduct and can improve their status by obeying the rules and regulations.

Productive activity--during work hours 

"Buns Out of Bed," the initiative requiring that general population inmates
engage full time in school, work, and treatment, was adopted in 1993 and
became State law a year later. The word that best conveys this approach is
"press": The institution's time and talent are organized around inmates' skill
building.

School. The need for prisoner education is great in Missouri prisons. The
majority of entering offenders lack basic literacy. Only one-third are high school
graduates or had earned a general equivalency diploma (GED) before
sentencing. Of the high school dropouts who constitute the other two-thirds of
admissions, half are functionally illiterate. Given the level of need, every adult
prisoner who does not have a high school diploma or GED must attend school
part time. Certified juvenile offenders must attend school full time. Other
inmates younger than age 21 who need educational assistance receive
additional, specialized instruction. 

Work. Offenders' work records are as weak as their educational records. The
majority are unemployed or underemployed at the time of commitment. Their
work histories are sporadic, and most have supplemented their earnings with
the proceeds of their criminal activity.

Work is mandatory. Prison employment encompasses a variety of full-time and
part-time assignments that amount to a full day's work, 5 days a week. As in
most other prisons, work details in Missouri often involve menial assignments.
However, Missouri is different in that prisoners are interviewed for the jobs and
they keep the jobs by following directions and learning to accept criticism. 

Treatment. Offenders fail far more often at sobriety than in school or at work.
Most Missouri prisoners need drug education, and many need long-term
treatment. Thirteen percent are convicted sex offenders, all of whom must
complete treatment before parole release. Overlapping those two groups are
the 15 percent with chronic mental health problems. Treatment is the first step.
Relapse prevention is the second. Compliance is checked continuously in a
variety of ways, including urinalysis for substance abusers and lie detector tests
for sex offenders. 

Underlying values. It is not enough that offenders become literate, employable,
and drug free. Inmates who earn a GED are better educated criminals. Inmates
who work are employable criminals. Inmates who have undergone
detoxification are sober criminals. To reduce relapse, revocation, and
recidivism, offenders must understand why these skills are beneficial and how to
use them beneficially. In short, they must internalize the values inherent in
school, work, and treatment. The parallel universe promotes such
understanding by bringing the outside world inside and operating as much like
the community as possible within security constraints. As in the community,
education increases earning potential: When offenders earn their GED, their pay
increases. Similarly, the GED is now the prerequisite for enrolling in vocational
education and for "premium pay" work.

Productive activity--during nonwork hours 

On the outside, life consists of more than work. Thus, the core prisoner reentry
program of school, work, and treatment is augmented with activities that help
inmates acquire other life skills and learn the underlying values. Community
service, reparation, and recreation are used to this end. 

Community service. In addition to being gainfully employed, many citizens
engage in activities that improve their community. In so doing, they better
appreciate their own good fortune and better understand the plight of others.
In Missouri, offenders participate in community service as an elective activity
when they are not working. They select charities to which they donate time and
money throughout the year. 

Reparation. Offenders commonly displace blame for their crimes onto their
victims and hold loved ones accountable for their lot in life. To reverse this
thinking, Missouri has instituted three reparative activities--victim-offender
mediation, victim impact classes, and institution-specific reparative projects.
Inmates participate to better understand the effect of their conduct on others
and to make amends. 

Recreation and other elective activities. Most criminals do not commit crimes
while at work or school. They do so during leisure hours. Public safety
therefore dictates that offenders have free time in prison to learn how to use it
constructively. In Missouri, the schedule has been revamped to allow recreation
during evenings and weekends. Other elective activities (such as doing laundry,
visiting the legal and reading library and the canteen, and receiving visitors) have
been rescheduled to avoid conflict with workday activities.

Underlying values. Nonwork activities should not interfere with school, work,
and treatment. Community service, reparation, and recreation should take place
before or after the workday. In the real world, few people routinely walk out of
school or off the job to work out at the gym or to volunteer at the soup kitchen.
Offenders have responsibilities to themselves and others; the schedules ensure
they do not leave key tasks incomplete and do not walk away from some
responsibilities to attend to others. 

Achieving sobriety, preventing relapse

Offenders develop cognitive skills and learn other strategies to achieve sobriety
and prevent relapse by abstaining from unauthorized activities--alcohol
consumption and sexual misconduct, and using illicit substances and engaging in
other forms of offending. 

Each offender enters prison with a unique sense of self, personal history, and
world view. The total institution suppresses inmates' identities and imposes
change superficially. It is no wonder that many inmates are sober only in prison:
Conventional systems do not provide offenders who are trying to avoid drugs
and alcohol with the skills to recognize the signs of relapse or to value sobriety.
Not surprisingly, many released sex offenders also reoffend when in close
proximity to potential victims because they lack the skill and insight to value
abstinence. Many other ex-offenders supplement their income by illegal activity
because they genuinely do not believe it is wrong. 

Good citizenship. Tolerance as part of prosocial conduct is as important in
Missouri prisons as the prohibition against drug trafficking. Many inmates, like
many other citizens, find it difficult to accept people whose race, religion, and
ethnicity are different from theirs. Many prison disturbances are race based.
Gangs are often organized around religious beliefs and formed within ethnic
groups. In conventional correctional practice, cultural diversity training is often
provided to staff but rarely to inmates. In Missouri, this training is an integral
part of inmates' orientation. It is as important that offenders interact in a civil
manner with one another and the staff as it is that the staff do so.

Cognitive restructuring. Criminals differ from other people largely in their
thought processes. They tend to focus more on their own desires ("I want your
car") than on the community's. They often rationalize their conduct ("He had it
coming") and minimize its effects on others ("She was insured"). Such thinking
discounts social norms and community values. Cognitive restructuring programs
enable inmates to spot the rationalizations they use to violate institutional rules
and break the law. In Missouri, the courses are offered electively. For
offenders whose conduct is poor, the classes are required in addition to
ordinary sanctions. Other programs that instill awareness of the effects of crime
include classes on the impact of crime on victims. Verbally abusive or physically
aggressive inmates are referred to anger management programs in addition to
receiving the ordinary sanctions.

Staying sober. It is important for offenders to learn to adopt a lifestyle that
increases the likelihood they will remain sober and crime free. The parallel
universe differs from conventional practice in informing prisoners of the results
of their substance abuse and sex offender assessments. Because they are aware
of their need for treatment as well as their risk of reoffending, they are better
able to make related decisions.

Prisoners are encouraged to use the information proactively to avoid drugs and
alcohol and reduce the likelihood of other rule violations. For example, they are
encouraged to request assignment to different housing units or changes in parole
home plans if those they live with put them at risk of relapse.

Underlying values. In the world outside, the members of one's immediate family
participate in treatment teams or other support groups because they are often
key to recovery. The same approach is taken in Missouri prisons, where
prerelease preparation includes families. It begins at intake. Inmates' families
are invited to an orientation and are encouraged to participate throughout their
loved one's confinement. Milestones (such as earning the GED) are identified,
and offenders' successes in reaching them are celebrated with letters
congratulating the family. Sex offenders are encouraged to authorize family
members to receive reports of treatment progress.

In some instances, families and friends impede inmates' progress. A family may
be unwilling to accept that the prisoner lives with and takes direction from
people who are racially or ethnically different. Family members may be
unwilling to hold the offender accountable or behave responsibly themselves (by
abstaining from drugs and alcohol, for example). When such conduct is likely to
affect the offender, parole plans are developed that involve people who will not
increase the chance of relapse, revocation, and recidivism.

Making decisions and solving problems

People sentenced to prison have failed at a number of things. Most notably,
they have failed to obey the law. They failed to make wise choices. In prison,
they need opportunities to make choices commensurate with their social skills
and the public safety risk they pose because, on release, they will resume
making both important and mundane decisions on a daily basis.[6]

In exercising strong control, traditional prison management does not develop
two important skills offenders need--making decisions and accepting their
consequences. The parallel universe, while regimented, recognizes sound
decisionmaking as essential to prisoners' success and that of the institution. 

Problem solving in prison is often adversarial. Riddled with formalities, inmate
grievance mechanisms short-circuit many complaints. The grievance system is
also a gatekeeper. Unless inmates exhaust the State's administrative remedies,
they cannot seek redress in Federal court. While correctional systems resist
prisoner litigation and court-initiated change, most do not make problem solving
a priority and fewer have viable strategies for corrections-based remedies.

In the parallel universe, problem solving is fast and informal. The Department of
Corrections Office of Constituent Services finds and fixes the root causes of
legitimate complaints at the earliest point at which they are recognized.
Responsibility for resolution is shared, with participation by inmates and staff
essential. Inmates must talk to staff and staff must listen. Remedies usually
include better communication between prisoners and prison staff--notably,
better explanations by inmates of their problems and better explanations by staff
of reasons for the rules, more timely notice when rules change, and
opportunities for feedback before changes are made. 

Inmates are encouraged to participate in the governance of the institution
through the inmate council and other offender organizations concerned with
conditions of confinement. Inmate representatives meet regularly with the prison
administration to critique institutional activities and develop rehabilitative
program proposals, doing so while taking into account the same time, space,
and staffing constraints as well as the same security considerations the
administration faces. 

Underlying values. When personal choice is eliminated, so is personal
accountability because the system makes all decisions for prisoners. Whether
the correctional model is retributive or rehabilitative, expectations for prisoner
behavior are reduced to the most basic: Avoid punishment.

By contrast, the parallel universe promotes responsibility in a number of ways.
For example, the management of offenders' personal affairs has been revised to
promote decisionmaking. Offenders keep track of their account balance at the
canteen. They learn to manage their time. They renew their prescriptions before
their supply of medication runs out. Making such decisions and accepting the
consequences for not making them are no longer the responsibility of prison
authorities. Decisions about other routine activities, including doing laundry and
cleaning cells, have also been made the prisoners' responsibility.

Only positive conduct counts

In prison, as in the world outside, status counts. However, in prison, unlike the
world outside, misconduct is emphasized in determining status. Good behavior
rarely matters. Inmates are thus more likely to receive sanctions and lose
standing--personal property, general-population housing, and a set parole
release date may be taken from them--than to improve standing. In Missouri,
offenders are recognized for good conduct and improve their standing by
obeying the rules and regulations. 

Offenders come to prison with a basic issue of property and limited access to
amenities. In the parallel universe, opportunities for better work assignments,
additional visits, and more property are earned by mastering basic skills. By
performing responsibly at work and in school and treatment, offenders
demonstrate prosocial conduct and earn privileges. Some privileges involve
acquiring goods; others involve trustee assignments. In the same way, as in the
world outside, underachievement reduces status.

Underlying values. Offenders acquire basic literacy, employability, and sobriety
skills at the earliest opportunity and use them throughout their confinement and
on parole. Inmates who dropped out of school must earn a GED because a
basic education is prerequisite to a productive life. And since education is tied
to economic advancement, base pay is greater for graduates and the highest
paying work assignments are reserved for offenders who have earned a high
school diploma or GED. 

Corrections corrected

The 25,339 felons in the Missouri prison system[7] could be considered failures
on a number of counts at admission. The vast majority were high school
dropouts--academic failures. Many had been unable to obtain or hold a job,
and most abused drugs and alcohol. Because every Missouri correctional
facility has adopted most components of the parallel universe, almost all
prisoners participate. Their transformation from failure to success can be
measured, chiefly by recidivism. The reduction by one-third (from 33 to 20
percent) in the proportion returned to prison on new felony charges between
1994 and 1999 attests to success. At the same time, each of the four
component areas shows evidence of effectiveness.

More than 98 percent of the inmates are engaged in some combination of
school, work, and treatment full time. Since 1993, when the school requirement
was instituted, the schools' capacity increased 172 percent and, at the end of
1999, more than 8,000 inmates were attending school daily and more than
2,400 had earned their GED that year.

Institutional employment increased about 65 percent between 1994 and 1999.
When the announcement was made in 1997 that a high school diploma or GED
would be required for the highest paying jobs, fully half of all prison workers
did not have a GED. A year later, only one-fourth had not yet earned a GED.
When the policy went into effect in 1999, only 74 offenders refused to attend
school, and because they had not earned a GED in the allotted time, were
reassigned to lower paying jobs. 

The number of substance treatment slots has more than tripled, from 772 in
1993 to 2,765 in 1999. Previously, offenders whose need for treatment was
acute but not chronic did not receive services. Now, substance abuse
assessments and drug education are available at every Missouri facility.

Problem solving is showing results, as measured by the work of the Office of
Constituent Services. The number of lawsuits brought by prisoners in 1999 was
less than one-fourth what it was in 1994. 

Toward a more perfect parallel universe

Inmates in Missouri serve an average of 28 months in prison. The Department
of Corrections uses these 28 months as a time of prerelease preparation for
their reentry as responsible individuals. As a model for offender management
and prerelease preparation, the parallel universe yields far better outcomes than
conventional correctional systems.

The offenders have enthusiastically embraced the principles of the parallel
universe, even making suggestions for expansion. The need to maintain security
will, of course, always preclude exact replication of the world outside.
Moreover, there are limits to what inmates can earn through good conduct,
good grades, and a good work history. They cannot earn early release because
their sentences were imposed by the court. Within these confines, however, is
ample latitude for managers to rethink any number of community-linked
resources that promote reentry. Inmates' families, a notable example, should
increasingly be part of prerelease preparation.

Increased organizational effectiveness

The organizational functioning of the Missouri Department of Corrections has
benefited from the parallel universe. Shifting from a system focused on punishing
misconduct to one that blends remedial responses with rewards for good
conduct requires reengineering such internal processes as recordkeeping. Now
Missouri tracks the number of GED certificates awarded, inmates employed,
and urine tests for drugs, in addition to the number of escapes and homicides.
Because each inmate's performance and program participation is important, it is
essential to maintain work and training reports and to document academic
performance, vocational training, and job skill levels. Such records permit
feedback to offenders and can be used by the parole board and inmates'
prospective employers. 

Management also benefits from the parallel universe. When policies are
reviewed or new procedures developed, one simple question is asked: How
would this issue be handled if it were not in the prison setting? Dealing with
medical copayments is an example. Requiring copayments of inmates has
become increasingly popular as a way to limit unnecessary clinic visits. In
keeping with the principles of the parallel universe, offenders who have the
resources to pay could be required to. Missouri is aware that copayments
should not be a way to make prison more punitive. 

Inmates benefit by becoming better acquainted with the way the world outside
operates and why it operates as it does. Management benefits. And when
prison policies and practices parallel those in the community, they are more
likely to appear reasonable to staff and to win their support. When staff
understand the reasons for adopted practices, they are far more likely to
enforce them clearly and consistently and with greater confidence. That surely
translates as a more effective correctional system.

---------------------------

Notes 

1. Goffman, Erving, Asylums, New York: Doubleday, 1961.

2. Cressey, Donald, "Contradictory Directives in Complex Organizations: The
Case of the Prison," Administrative Science Quarterly 4 (June 1959).

3. Goffman, Erving, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Upper Saddle
Ridge, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973.

4. Sykes, Gresham, The Society of Captives, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1958.

5. Wilson, James Q., The Moral Sense, New York: The Free Press, 1993.

6. O'Leary, Vincent, Correctional Policy Inventory: A Survey of Correctional
Philosophy and Characteristic Methods of Dealing With Offenders,
Hackensack, NJ: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1970.

7. Figure is for the start of fiscal year 2000.

---------------------------

The Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections 
Convened the following distinguished panel of leaders in the fields:

Neal Bryant
Senator
Oregon State Senate

Harold Clarke
Director
Department of Correctional Services
State of Nevada

Cheryl Crawford
Deputy Director, Office of Development and Communications
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Barbara Damchik-Dykes
Project Coordinator
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections

Walter Dickey
Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin 

Ronald Earle
District Attorney
Austin, Texas

Tony Fabelo
Director
Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council

Richard S. Gebelein
Superior Court Judge
Wilmington, Delaware

John Gorczyk
Commissioner
Department of Corrections
State of Vermont

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer
Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
U.S. Department of Justice

Sally T. Hillsman
Deputy Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Martin Horn
Secretary
Department of Corrections
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Susan M. Hunter
Chief, Prisons Division
National Institute of Corrections
U.S. Department of Justice 

Leena Kurki
Research Associate 
Law School
University of Minnesota
Project Associate
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections 

John J. Larivee
Chief Executive Officer
Community Resources for Justice

Joe Lehman
Secretary
Department of Corrections
State of Washington

Dennis Maloney
Director
Deschutes County (Oregon) 
Department of Community Justice

Larry Meachum
Director
Corrections Program Office
Office of Justice Programs
U.S. Department of Justice

Mark H. Moore
Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

Norval Morris
Emeritus Professor of Law and Criminology
University of Chicago

Joan Petersilia
Professor of Criminology, 
Law and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine

Kay Pranis
Restorative Justice Planner
Department of Corrections
State of Minnesota

Michael Quinlan
Former Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons 
U.S. Department of Justice 

Chase Riveland
Principal
Riveland Associates

Thomas W. Ross
Superior Court Judge, 18th Judicial District
Chair, North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission

Dora Schriro
Director
Department of Corrections
State of Missouri

Michael Smith
Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin 

Morris Thigpen
Director
National Institute of Corrections
U.S. Department of Justice

Michael Tonry
Director
Institute of Criminology
University of Cambridge
Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy
University of Minnesota 
Project Director
Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections

Jeremy Travis
Senior Fellow
The Urban Institute
Former Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice

Reginald A. Wilkinson
Director
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
State of Ohio

---------------------------

Directors' Message

It is by now a commonplace that the number of people under criminal justice
supervision in this country has reached a record high. As a result, the sentencing
policies driving that number, and the field of corrections, where the
consequences are felt, have acquired an unprecedented salience. It is a salience
defined more by issues of magnitude, complexity, and expense than by any
consensus about future directions. 

Are sentencing policies, as implemented through correctional programs and
practices, achieving their intended purposes? As expressed in the movement to
eliminate indeterminate sentencing and limit judicial discretion, on the one hand,
and to radically restructure our retributive system of justice, on the other, the
purposes seem contradictory, rooted in conflicting values. The lack of
consensus on where sentencing and corrections should be headed is thus no
surprise. 

Because sentencing and corrections policies have such major consequences--
for the allocation of government resources and, more fundamentally and
profoundly, for the quality of justice in this country and the safety of its citizens-
-the National Institute of Justice and the Corrections Program Office (CPO) of
the Office of Justice Programs felt it opportune to explore them in depth.
Through a series of Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, begun
in 1998 and continuing through the year 2000, practitioners and scholars
foremost in their field, representing a broad cross-section of points of view,
were brought together to find out if there is a better way to think about the
purposes, functions, and interdependence of sentencing and corrections
policies. 

We are fortunate in having secured the assistance of Michael Tonry, Sonosky
Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota Law School,
and Director, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, as project
director. 

One product of the sessions is this series of papers, commissioned by NIJ and
the CPO as the basis for the discussions. Drawing on the research and
experience of the session participants, the papers are intended to distill their
judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of current practices and about
the most promising ideas for future developments. 

The sessions were modeled on the executive sessions on policing held in the
1980s and 1990s under the sponsorship of NIJ and Harvard's Kennedy
School of Government. Those sessions played a role in conceptualizing
community policing and spreading it. Whether the current sessions and the
papers based on them will be instrumental in developing a new paradigm for
sentencing and corrections, or even whether they will generate broad-based
support for a particular model or strategy for change, remains to be seen. It is
our hope that in the current environment of openness to new ideas, the session
papers will provoke comment, promote further discussion and, taken together,
will constitute a basic resource document on sentencing and corrections policy
issues that will prove useful to State and local policymakers.

Julie E. Samuels
Acting Director
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice 

Larry Meachum
Director
Corrections Program Office
U.S. Department of Justice

---------------------------

Dora Schriro, Ph.D., is Director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.

This study was supported by cooperative agreement 97-MUMU-K006
between the National Institute of Justice and the University of Minnesota.

Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice. 

The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice
Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of
Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and
the Office for Victims of Crime.

This and other NIJ publications can be found at and downloaded from the NIJ
Web site (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij).

NCJ 181414