Perceptions of the stated goals and objectives of the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center by selected criminal justice and social service agency personnel in the Youngstown area

Abstract

This study was an investigation of the MahoningCounty Correctional Treatment Center. The Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center is a non-residential correctional facility which attempts to bring community rehabilitation into the county jail setting. The primary stated objective of the center is comprehensive vocational counseling of both a group and individual nature to prepare the offender for either gainful employment or continued education upon release. The Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center views its eventual success by whether the offender has been adequately reintegrated into the community as a law abiding citizen. However, the center recognizes that certain short range goals need also to be attained so as to properly gauge the center's overall success. The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain how knowledgeable selected criminal justice and social service agency personnel in the Youngstown area were as to the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center's stated goals and objectives. Associating criminal .justice and social service agency personnel awareness of the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center's goals and . objectives is important to the center in properly establishing and maintaining a cooperative working relationship. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine the amount of support and the extent of use made of the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center by the selected Youngstown area criminal justice and social service agency personnel. The selected criminal justice agency personnel were excluded from the analysis because their questionnaire response was too small to enable the drawing of valid conclusions. The results of this study indicated that for the most part the selected Youngstown area social service agency personnel incorrectly perceived the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center's stated goals and objectives. Therefore, the Mahoning County Correctional Treatment Center is not sufficiently achieving its short range goal of center goal and objective awareness by associating social service agency personnel. However. other results of the study did show that although the selected Youngstown area social service personnel did not make optimal use of the center, they did in fact highly support its existence.