NCJ Number
136800
Date Published
1988
Length
0 pages
Annotation
Most prisons in the United States today are operating at 100 to 130 percent of capacity. Because of this, States are reevaluating sentencing practices to deal with the dearth of sentencing options which have been limited to prison or probation. This film deals with the following alternatives: boot camp, house arrest, strict probation plus restitution, strict probation, regular probation, and strict probation plus community service.
Abstract
It begins with a review of the conditions resulting from crowding in prisons: work programs that cannot accommodate the number of inmates so that most inmates remain idle, inmates crowded in cells meant to contain only two persons, makeshift "cells" being created in prison facilities such as cafeterias and gyms, and new prisons being built at a rate of 2 per week across the country yet still too few to contain the growing population. It then presents each of the six sentencing options under experimentation and presents their pro's and con's. Among the advantages are a considerable reduction in cost per offender in alternative programs and a resulting reduction in number of persons in prisons, thus a reduced need for new facilities. The disadvantages include issues the question of whether society's need to punish is being met as well as the fact that offenders are not in custody and can therefore continue to commit crime.