NATIONAL STANDARDS AND GOALS ON CORRECTIONS

The article seeks to highlight some potential barriers to the implementation of the recently promulgated Standards and Goals on Corrections. Basing the analysis on concepts pertaining to the diffusion of innovations, it is pointed out that implementation may be seriously impeded due to the dissonance of the Standards with the realities of the corrections community as a bureaucracy, lack of concrete guidelines for the implementation of the goals proposed, and the absence of any relationship of the proposed goals to considerations of cost and the availability of public revenues.