1. Intermediate Sanctions Community Corrections
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 for intermediate 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”
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

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 of interchangeability”
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?