Endnotes
1. Heather C. West, "Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009 — Statistical Tables," Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, posted June 2010, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/pim09st.pdf (accessed on July 21, 2010). The incarceration rate for black non-Hispanic U.S. resident males is 4,749 per 100,000; for white non-Hispanic U.S. resident males, it is 708 per 100,000; and for Hispanic U.S. resident males, it is 1,822 per 100,000.
2. Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate (New York: The New Press, 2006), 177–186.
3. Children’s Defense Fund, "America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline," October 2007, www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/cradle-prison-pipeline-report-2007-full-highres.html.
4. James Bonta, et al., "Restorative Justice and Recidivism: Promises Made, Promises Kept?," in Handbook of Restorative Justice: A Global Perspective, ed. Dennis Sullivan and Larry Tifft (New York: Routledge, 2006). This study by Bonta and his colleagues is a meta-analysis of all published evaluations of restorative justice programs of all types in comparison with incarceration and rehabilitative alternatives. The authors define "appropriate rehabilitative interventions" in terms of three factors: risk, need, and responsiveness. This definition is based upon a study by D.A. Andrews, James Bonta, and R.D. Hoge, "Classification for Effective Rehabilitation: Rediscovering Psychology," Criminal Justice and Behavior 17 (1990): 19–52. The factor of risk indicates that "the intensity of human service intervention should be proportional to the offender’s risk to re-offend ... treating low-risk offenders has minimal impact on recidivism" (Bonta, et al. (2006), 111). The needs addressed by interventions should be criminogenic, such as "substance abuse, cognitions supportive of crime, and social support for crime," versus non-criminogenic needs, such as self-esteem. Finally, programs should be responsive to the particular capacities and motivations of offenders.
© March / April 2011
Journal of Lutheran Ethics
Volume 11, Issue 2