Intermediate Sanctions: A Balanced Approach to Justice

1. Chapter 9 Intermediate Sanctions and Community Corrections

2. Intermediate Sanctions • The Case for Intermediate Sanctions • Unnecessary Imprisonment • Limitations of Probation • Improvements in Justice

3. the arguments forintermediate sanctions • traditional probation does not work with most offenders; they need more • but imprisonment is too much:too restrictive for many offenders • justice is best served by options between these extremes prison probation

4. “continuum of sanctions” • a range of correctional management strategies which vary in degrees of intrusiveness & control over an offender; the offender is moved up or down along the continuum, based on his or her response to correctional programs along the spectrum of options…

5. e.g., continuum of sanctions

6. annual costs of prison vs. intermediate sanctions

7. “community corrections acts” • legislative enactments in a number of states which provide financial incentives for local governments to keep offenders in local corrections agencies/programs, rather than sending them to state prisons • e.g., old “California Probation Subsidy” program • Minnesota = 1st CCA, 1973; currently 27 states • 3 aims: • keep people out of prison; by providing help in community • reduce tax revenues spent on corrections • reduce prison populations; save beds for hard-core offenders

8. Myths in Corrections • The Myth: Drug testing for people under community supervision deters them from drug use. • The Reality: The rate of drug testing has been found to have no relationship to the amount of a person’s drug use.

9. administration of intermediate sanctions? the judiciary • restitution • pretrial diversion • fines (>$1billion/yr) • forfeiture (RICO; >$1 billion-drugs) the community • intensive supervision • electronic monitoring • home confinement • day reporting centers • probation center • day reporting ctr • restitution center • work furlough • medical treatment • drugs • psychological the institution • shock incarceration • boot camp • fire, forestry camps • intermittent sent.

10. “day fine” • a financial criminal penalty based on the amount of income an offender earns in a day’s work; • in effect, offender is sentenced to a specified number of days’ worth of income, irrespective of his or her individual income level

11. “restitution” • compensationfor financial, physical, or emotional loss caused by an offender, in the form of either monetary payment to the victim (or a public fund for crime victims) or work at a service project in the community

12. problems with intermediate sanctions • selecting the agency (who administers?) • selecting offender(who should receive?) • based on offense severity? • based on offender needs? • the troublesome issue of “stakes” • selecting the sentence • problem of interchangeability • widening the net • wider nets (catch more offenders) • stronger nets (harder to escape control) • different nets (different kinds of control)

13. “stakes” • the potential losses to victims & CJS if offender fails; stakes include injury from new crimes + public pressure resulting from negative publicity • relevance: most “appropriate” sentence may not be “available” because of public/political pressure/concerns. • e.g., high-profile offender simply can’t be paroled or put on probation.

14. “principle ofinterchangeability” • idea that different types of intermediate sanction can be calibrated so that they may be compared quantitatively with one other, despite significant differences in approach Are these the same? Which is equivalent to another? 4 months of boot camp? or 12 months of home confinement? or 8 months of community service? or $10,000?