Positive reiforcement through the criminal justice system - Essay Example

The positive reinforcement addresses the history, development, and the current position of the international criminal justice. Positive reinforces in modifying criminal behavior can be material or nonmaterial and may include monetary rewards, praise, privileges, smiles, and recognition. The source “Prisoners of Parole” by Jeffrey Rosen presents the frustrations of a state trial judge in Hawaii after drug convicts sentenced to probation instead of imprisonment violated the terms of that probation by missing appointments or testing positive for drugs (Rosen 1).

The source reckons that initially probation officers assumed probation violations and recommend imprisonment for the convicts if the violations persist. This strategy did not please judge Alm, who consequently designed program HOPE, for Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement that was very successful in reducing prison population and probation violations (Rosen 1). The program recommended immediate arrest, trial, and imprisonment for probation violators. The legitimacy, fairness, and consistency of the program led to its success.

The source notes that many scholars studying deterrence today are using the HOPE program. The program can effectively reduce prison population and equally deter potential criminals from committing crime. The program is significant in the models for national parole reform and changed the offender and community’s view on the criminal justice system (Rosen 1). The source “Contingency Management Strategies and Ideas” by N. G. Bartholomew, Grace Rowan-Szal, & D. D. Simpson presents a manual with modular applications for use by personnel and groups working in substance abuse treatment programs.

The source focuses on the strategies that the personnel can adopt in using rewards and star charts for reinforcement, engagement, and retention in treating substance abuse victims (Bartholomew et al 1). The source “American Youth Violence: A Cautionary Tale” by Franklin E. Zimring claims that there has been continued concern for students of juvenile delinquency who engage in violence (Zimring 265). The source observes that initially the juveniles dominated the less serious crimes. However, this trend changed in the late 1980s when the juveniles and young adults dominated the gun homicides, which led to the warning of an emerging group of criminals.

This also led to the notion of inaccurate prediction of juvenile violence as the rate of youth homicide began to drop substantially in the recent past (Zimring 265). The source asserts that there are problematic assumptions, which lead to wrong predictions of crime in the society. The source “Deterrence in the 21st century” by Daniel S. Nagin reckons that the support for the deterrent effect of the certainty of punishment supersedes the severity of punishment (Nagin 1). It notes that the certainty of apprehension is more effective in deterring crime than the severity of a legal punishment (Nagin 1).

To this effect, the source notes that long imprisonments and mandatory minimum sentences cannot amount to efficient determent. The source introduces the theories of deterrence, which address sanctions in the singular and fail to offer the conceptual basis for considering the differential deterrent effects of different components (Nagin 1). Indeed, the source establishes four research gaps to the study on deterrence in the 21st century. The major issues addressed in these sources are deterrence