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68 Prison J. i (1988)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl68 and id is 1 raw text is: Preface Corrections in America today is in a state of inertia combined with bewilderment. The disillusionment with the rehabilitative ideal in the seventies has been replaced with doubts about the effects of retribution, incapacitation, and deterrence in the eighties. Contemporary sentencing policies built upon these questionable objectives have restored capital punishment in most states, produced overcrowding in our prisons, cut the already minimal institutional services available to offenders, and halted the expansion of community-based corrections. Yet crime rates have not been reduced below the levels expected from the changing age distribution in the population. As John Conrad emphatically declared in the last issue of this publication, We Can't Go On Like This. What new directions are available to us? What should be the future of corrections in our society? The bicentennial year of the Pennsylvania Prison Society was a singularly appropriate time to ask these questions, and the Society is still in the process of seeking answers. In the last two issues of The Prison Journal, the past contributions of the Society and the future of corrections were explored by scholars and practitioners on the home- front. In this issue, we look to the international scene. We asked academicians, who have been actively involved in international and comparative criminal justice research, to examine correctional developments in seven different countries and to share them with our readers. The six articles report on correctional policies and practices over a fairly wide spectrum of nations with different political and economic systems. We have tried to show the similarities and contrasts between occidental and oriental societies; between capitalist, socialist, and democratic-socialist states; and between countries with crim- inal justice systems based on Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and those with a different heritage. Given the space limitations of a single issue, there are, of course, significant omissions. In order to introduce our readers to descriptions of correctional systems not readily accessible in the United States, we omitted updating developments in the more familiar Western democracies. Futhermore, developing countries of the third world have not been included. Perhaps future issues of the Journal may be devoted to rectify- ing these omissions. The contributors were asked to devote part of their papers to a brief description of the social structure and culture of the particular country and to introduce the reader to its criminal justice system. In addition, we suggested that they focus on those aspects of corrections which represented innovative and unique approaches as well as special problem areas encountered in correctional policy and practice. Each contributed article takes a somewhat different approach to the assignment, but we hope all of them suggest alternatives which should be considered in shaping the future of American corrections. Whether it is the management techniques of the Japanese system, the unrelenting optimism and faith in rehabilitation in the People's Republic of China, the recent attempts to respond to cultural diversity in the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia and of Native Indian and Inuit groups in Canada, the emphasis on collective responsi- bility and community crime prevention in the Soviet Union, or the humane incarcera- tion practices of Denmark and Sweden, this may well be the time for us to look at new ideas from abroad. I want to thank the management of The Prison Journal for offering me the oppor- tunity to serve as guest editor and contributor to this issue on international develop- ments in corrections. My grateful acknowledgments also include the assistance of Dr. Charles R. Fenwick and the informal network of scholars committed to international and comparative criminal justice research, without which this task would have been much more complex and difficult. Finn Hornum Guest Editor

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