Strategies for Action in Meeting Correctional Manpower and Program Needs

Abstract

Many of the problems involved in meeting correctional man power and program development needs arise from the great diversity of interests involved.

Both correctional programs and the academic disciplines which prepare people to work in them are fragmented and isolated from one another. While it is not possible to develop a single approach to the problem, developments at the national level (particularly the advent of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice and the Joint Com mission on Correctional Manpower and Training) hold much promise for cooperative solutions.

To communicate effectively with those who hold the purse strings, we must develop a master plan which would project man power needs and facilitate the sharing of information about resources and priorities.

The correctional field is now working to substitute specific program goals for general statements of purpose. It is, for ex ample, developing different styles of treatment most appropriate for particular types of offenders. As this movement progresses, it will be possible to communicate more effectively with decision- makers and to work out more satisfactory educational programs related to the tasks and skills actually required of correctional workers.

A major action strategy lies in the development of more effec tive research programs and in the utilization of research informa tion. Both practitioners and researchers need to practice the art of helping each other and to work out a division of labor through which they can serve each other's needs more effectively.