Developments in Correctional Services for Adult Felony Offenders in Louisiana

What la Louisiana getting far Its multi-mllion dollar Investment and annual expenditure of thousands of dollars for correctional services? Is this what we want, ar should we strive for something better? This thesis attempts to answer these questions in terms of a reformulation of major correctional theories. These theories are organized here Into two approaches to the problem of correction, designated as the legalistic and scientific systems. Their basic premises are, respectively, the traditional concept of free will and the scientific concept of multiple causation In human behavior. This study concerns Louisiana State Penitentiary, the Board of Parole, and the Division of Probation and Parole of the Louisiana Department of Public Welfare. Today these agencies are found to be legalistic in their conception of their function; their reciprocal relationships are a matter of administrative expediency rather than therapeutic necessity, that Is, the individual offender Is subjected to a segmented approach by Independent, loosely co-ordinated agencies instead of a continuous treatment process. They do not employ scientific methods. When the problem of correction of adult felony offenders Is viewed from broader perspectives, it Is found that many perplexing problems remain to be solved. In Louisiana, we do not know how many such offenders there are; their fate Is too largely decided on the basis of inadequate information and accidents of geography. Although administrative and therapeutic considerations both Indicate that the agencies dealing with these Individuals should be Integrated, no study has been made to determine what the most felicitous lv auspices would be. Important, advances have been made in Louisiana in recent years, but much yet remains to be done. The writer proposes a Louisiana Correctional Commission as a first step in the orderly evolution of a conceptually consistent and scientifically oriented correctional system