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Article 17.1

Lutze, F. E., Wesley Johnson, W., Clear, T. R., Latessa, E. J., & Slate, R. N. (2012). The future of community corrections is now: Stop dreaming and take action. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 28(1), 42-59.

The political, economic, and social context in which community corrections functions makes it extremely difficult to achieve successful outcomes. The current fiscal crisis, however, is forcing change as many states can no longer support the cost of our 30-year imprisonment binge. As in the past, community corrections will be expected to pick up the pieces of an overcrowded and expensive prison system. The authors argue that community corrections is capable of taking on this challenge and can be successful if policy makers take action to reduce prison and community supervision populations, ensure that agencies are structured to proactively support evidence-based practice, and recognize corrections as a human services profession. The authors present a number of actions that can be taken to promote a new era of shared responsibility in corrections that is framed within a human rights perspective and driven by an ethic of care.

Article 17.2

Spader, D. J. (2002). The morality of justice and the morality of care: Are there distinct moral orientations for males and females? Criminal Justice Review, 27(1), 66-88.

Do males and females possess different orientations toward ethics? Carol Gilligan answered this question in the affirmative with the publication of In a Different Voice, in which her empirical research demonstrated different moral orientations between the sexes. Since her 1982 publication, Gilligan and numerous other researchers have developed the “morality of care” as an alternative to the traditional “morality of justice” approach that has dominated moral and political philosophy for the past two centuries. Gilligan and others suggest that the morality of care reflects gender differences and highlights critical omissions of traditional ethics. The purpose of the present article is to provide an overview and analysis of the two moralities. The following examination includes (a) a review of Gilligan’s early and later research, (b) a summary of the core distinctions with citations for further reading, (c) empirical and theoretical criticisms of the difference theory, and (d) an analysis of four major approaches that may be adopted with criminal justice applications. The article concludes that the field of criminal justice, and especially criminal justice ethics, might obtain significant benefits by recognizing the adequacy, and in some issues the superiority, of moral theories that can integrate a care orientation. Criminal justice should join numerous other professions that are using the rich insights and practices emanating from the morality of care.

Article 17.3

Kim, A. S., DeValve, M., DeValve, E. Q., & Johnson, W. W. (2003). Female wardens: Results from a national survey of state correctional executives. The Prison Journal, 83(4), 406-425.

This study describes the current situation for female wardens by examining their attitudes toward inmate services, programs, and amenities survival; involvement with correctional staff; and identity as a supervisor through their political affiliations and punishment philosophies. Using Noddings’ “caring ethic,” this study sought to determine whether the historical inclusion of women in corrections has carried over to present time and has retained its reformist nature and whether the job of warden has become more gender-neutral. The results indicate that the differences between male and female wardens are few; those that did exist provided some support for the caring ethic and the retention of women’s roles in corrections as reformers.