NCJ Number
134628
Journal
Community Corrections Quarterly Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: (Spring 1990) Pages: 1-6
Date Published
1990
Length
6 pages
Annotation
With legislators clamoring for a less expensive response to crime than incarceration and judges intent on dispensing individualized justice, there is renewed interest in intermediate sanctions.
Abstract
Intermediate sanctions include restitution centers, work-release centers, and probation detention facilities. This can mean increased surveillance, tighter controls on movement, more intense treatment for a wider assortment of maladies or deficiencies, increased offender accountability, and greater emphasis on payments to victims and/or corrections authorities. The forces driving the expansion of intermediate sanctions include escalating jail and prison populations, the demands of victims and their communities, changing technology, and the drug crisis. Actions that officials can take to increase the chances of success of intermediate sanctions in their jurisdictions are: (1) to articulate precisely why a jurisdiction needs intermediate sanctions; (2) to establish clear sanctioning goals; (3) to make available a continuum of sanctions scaled around one or more sanctioning goals; and (4) to collect and use good information about the jurisdiction's criminal justice system.