Understand the needs of the community. Community corrections involves services provided for former inmates once they are released into the community, and as former inmates they have a variety of criminal backgrounds and needs. The inmates' needs are not the only ones to consider, however, as the general public has a tendency to lack understanding when it comes to former inmates which can lead to increased, though often unnecessary, fear. Needs should focus on education, rehabilitation, follow-up care, job training and other essentials as well as goals such as reducing recidivism.
Consider the approach your research should take. If taking a forensic psychology approach, topics should focus on psychologically relevant features of community corrections. If taking a criminal justice approach, topics should focus more on criminal justice relevance such as reducing prison populations, crime rates and more effective community corrections control and accountability.
Conduct a scholarly sources search through your library or university system using general keywords to see where research has gone thus far. For example, if using the university library system and searching journal articles and peer-reviewed sources, you may try keywords such as: "community corrections," "forensic psychology," "prison psychology," "offender programs" or "reduce recidivism."
Review the literature that the search turns up. Common themes will be present, such as an overwhelming majority of articles focusing on certain aspects of community corrections. These are likely to present the easiest topics to research with ample scholarly sources for a solid paper.