fectively using correctional resources to reduce offender recidivism. (Buddress, p.5)Such programs are much less expensive than prisons and using them more often would provide an outlet to prison overcrowding while offering marked success in reducing recidivism. In addition, since these programs offer individual supervision, they provide the kind of social support that the authors of the C-Unit feel is so important. These types of programs address the symptoms of criminal behavior. They are concerned with reducing prison population and changing the outward behavior of offenders. However, are such programs helpful in initiating a permanent and irreversible change in offenders? Dennis Wrong reminds us that conformism is a concept that occurs when values are shared. This means that if offenders honestly believe in the same values as the rest of the community, they will naturally conform to the acceptable behaviors of the community. Unfortunately, it is difficult to address directly an offenders value system. These programs, at best, confront the results of the value system. Wrong would say that these programs are forcing the offenders to conform without directly influencing the underlying values. Because their fundamental values are unchanged, a change in behavior would not be involuntary and natural. Individuals do not readily accept this forced conformity. Compounding the problem is the status an offender is labeled with in the community. Employers are reluctant to hire them and their neighbors are usually suspicious of them. Their community is not freely accepting them back. The more abhorrent the criminal act leads to a stronger stigma attached to the offender. Infact, in the case of crimes of extreme violence or those of a sexual nature, communities will strongly reject the reintegration of offenders. Wrong believes that it is this status issue that is pitting offenders against their respective communities. He says, th...
