Intermediate Sanctions

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Chapter 8

• Intermediate Sanctions

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the arguments for intermediate sanctions

• traditional probation does not work with most
  offenders they need more
• but imprisonment is too muchtoo restrictive for
  many offenders
• justice is best served by options between these
  extremes

prison
probation
I
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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

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eg, continuum of sanctions
most severe
least severe
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annual costs of prison vs. intermediate sanctions
Data are for Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina,
Virginia.
annual cost
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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
• eg, 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

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administration of intermediate sanctions?

• restitution
• pretrial diversion
• fines (gt1billion/yr)
• forfeiture (RICO gt1 billion-drugs)

the judiciary

• intensive supervision
• electronic monitoring
• home confinement
• day reporting centers
• probation center
• day reporting ctr
• restitution center

the community

• work furlough
• medical treatment
• drugs
• psychological

• shock incarceration
• boot camp

the institution

• fire, forestry camps
• intermittent sent.

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day fine

• a financial criminal penalty based on the amount
  of income an offender earns in a days work
• in effect, offender is sentenced to a specified
  number of days worth of income, irrespective of
  his or her individual income level

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restitution

• compensation for 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

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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)

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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.
• eg, high-profile offender simply cant be paroled
  or put on probation.

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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?