NCJ Number
129875
Date Published
1991
Length
5 pages
Annotation
While intermediate sanctions may provide a means of addressing issues of prison crowding, crime, and justice, it is often difficult to obtain community acceptance for them.
Abstract
A public education campaign in support of alternative sanctions should show examples of programs used in other cities, emphasize the need for reintegration of offenders into the community, and illustrate meaningful ways of punishing nonviolent offenders other than incarceration. For example, Delaware has instituted a program designed to ensure that offenders receive a punishment commensurate with their crime, with due regard for resource availability and cost. The correctional system was restructured to a 5-level continuum of punishment which allows offenders to earn their way out of a prison or to work their way further into the system through nonconformity or additional offenses. The State government worked to build a consensus for the program among community leaders. The public awareness strategy used emphasized reasonable expectation, pilot programs, program evaluations, and ongoing communications. As a result of this program, the growth rate in Delaware's prison population appears to be slowing, and there has been a saving of over $5 million a year.