The branch of corrections within the criminal justice system refers or entails to those functions that are carried out by different government agencies with the aim of managing those individuals who have been convicted of crimes ( Wells, 2017) . These functions include but are not limited to imprisonment, parole and probation. The correction system is otherwise known as the penal system, and it involves prisons, community-based programs and probation boards that help convicted persons navigate the formal system of repentance and change. Corrections as a term can be used to refer to an academic discipline that concerns itself with those programs, theories, and policies that outline the practice of corrections. The discipline trains personnel on the art and discipline of managing convicted persons as well as the experiences of dealing with those defiant of the correctional process ( McNeece, 2013) . Corrections, while to most people it may refer to the prison system, it is a system that involves the rehabilitation process that reintegrates criminals into the society through a community-based system. Unlike policing and courts, the other two main areas of the criminal justice system, corrections is a paradoxical function that compares the formal with the informal, in the manner the government tries to reform the society through a set function (correction system). This creates a conflict that is counterproductive and reductant of the intended results. Barfield-Cottledge (2017) in his book points out that the correction system, in most cases, tends to be a ‘refining school’ where convicted individuals are taught the art of crime. As such, corrections provide a researcher with the opportunity to question those individual policies and practices that make it so contradictory of the purpose it is meant to fulfil. Importantly, it provides one with the research options needed to investigate the laid out practices that make the correction system so contradictory in the result as compared to its theoretical expectations ( Ambos & Heinze, 2018) .
References
Ambos, K., & Heinze, A. (2018). International Criminal Law and International Criminal Justice. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice . doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.412
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Barfield-Cottledge, T. (2017). Corrections: Experiences in State Parole. Experiencing Corrections: From Practitioner to Professor Experiencing Corrections: From Practitioner to Professor , 135–148. doi: 10.4135/9781452243948.n10
Mcneece, C. A. (2013). Criminal Justice: Corrections. Encyclopedia of Social Work . doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.540
Wells, M. J. (2017). United States, Corrections in. The Encyclopedia of Corrections , 1–8. doi: 10.1002/9781118845387.wbeoc218
