CORRECTIONS TODAY, 4th Edition, is a briefer, visual, paperback alternative to hardback Introduction to Corrections texts, ideal for instructors who are looking for course materials that emphasize real-world concepts and applications in their Corrections courses. This innovative text examines the field of corrections through the lens of students who are giving serious thought to a career in the field or are working in corrections while seeking an advanced degree in order to be promoted or switch job paths. Updated with new professional profiles and coverage of the latest insights into restorative justice, recidivism, special offender populations, the use of private prisons, and many other timely topics, the fourth edition offers a practical, engaging, career-focused, and thoroughly authoritative introduction to corrections. What’s more, the MindTap® that accompanies this text helps students practice and master techniques and key concepts while engaging them with video cases, career-based decision-making scenarios, visual summaries, and more.

Part I: THE CORRECTIONAL SYSTEM: HOW AND WHY WE CORRECT.
1. The Correctional System.
2. Sentencing and the Correctional Process.
Part II: TYPES OF CORRECTIONAL SANCTIONS.
3. Community Corrections: Diversion and Probation.
4. Intermediate Sanctions and Restorative Justice.
5. Jails and Houses of Correction.
6. Prisons.
Part III: LIVING IN AND LEAVING THE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION.
7. The Prison Experience: Males and Females.
8. Prisoners' Rights.
9. Correctional Programs and Services.
10. Parole and Release to the Community.
Part IV: UNIQUE PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN CORRECTIONS.
11. Special Prison Populations.
12. Capital Punishment and the Death Row Inmate.
13. The Juvenile Offender.

CORRECTIONS TODAY, 4th Edition, is a briefer, visual, paperback alternative to hardback Introduction to Corrections texts, ideal for instructors who are looking for course materials that emphasize real-world concepts and applications in their Corrections courses. This innovative text examines the field of corrections through the lens of students who are giving serious thought to a career in the field or are working in corrections while seeking an advanced degree in order to be promoted or switch job paths. Updated with new professional profiles and coverage of the latest insights into restorative justice, recidivism, special offender populations, the use of private prisons, and many other timely topics, the fourth edition offers a practical, engaging, career-focused, and thoroughly authoritative introduction to corrections. What’s more, the MindTap® that accompanies this text helps students practice and master techniques and key concepts while engaging them with video cases, career-based decision-making scenarios, visual summaries, and more. Consolidation of the separate chapters on male and female prisons makes the fourth edition briefer and more focused; the text now features 13 chapters organized into four logical parts. The careers in corrections coverage and profiles of current working corrections professionals -- who discuss what it's like to work in the field of corrections -- are now more thoroughly integrated throughout the text. All of the "Corrections Professional" features (which present interviews with working professionals) are new to this edition. Profiles include a juvenile probation/parole specialist, a correctional officer at a county jail with more than 800 inmates, a housing unit correctional officer at an all-female prison, and a parole officer/former hostage negotiator with an intensive supervised probation (ISP) clientele. The new MindTap® for the text offers customizable content, course analytics, an e-reader, and an applied learning experience -- all within your current learning management system. MindTap® prepares students to make the kinds of reasoned, real-world decisions they will need to make as future professionals. With its rich array of assets -- all of which are tagged by learning objective and Bloom's Taxonomy level -- MindTap® is perfectly suited for today's Criminal Justice students, engaging them, guiding them toward mastery of basic concepts, and advancing their critical thinking abilities. Gripping, current, high-profile cases are the subject of the text's real-life chapter opening vignettes, which capture student interest and encourage reading. Chapter 5, for instance, describes a recent case at the Baltimore jail where several corrections officers were indicted for assisting Tayon White -- an inmate in the jail and a member of the Black Guerilla Family (BGF) prison gang -- in running a lucrative drug operation behind bars. "TechnoCorrections" boxes provide comprehensive information about the latest technologies in corrections. Topics include a New Jersey pilot project concerning round-the-clock Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring for the state's most dangerous registered sex offenders; and possible future technologies, such as scanning devices that can help detect illegal contraband, devices that use radio waves to track prisoner and staff movements, and computer programs that may help predict where problems are most likely to occur within correctional institutions. "Evidence-Based Corrections" boxes highlight evidence-based policies and practices in the field of corrections. For example, Chapter 11 introduces the Delaware-based KEY/Crest program, a corrections- and community-based multistage substance abuse treatment program for drug-involved offenders. Careers in corrections are highlighted in every chapter with such features as "The Corrections Professional," which includes interviews of working professionals; "Careers in Corrections" boxes that spotlight real corrections professionals; and "Thinking Like a Corrections Professional" activities that challenge students to think critically and problem solve about dilemmas they are likely to face on the job. "Correctional Life" inserts give students a firsthand glimpse of what it is like "inside" prisons of the past or the present. Provocative "Myth/Fact" boxes present popular myths (i.e., "prison rehabilitation efforts are a failure") followed by a fact that has been supported by research in the field, and are designed to generate lively discussion and debate in the classroom.