NCJ Number
147150
Journal
Howard Journal Volume: 33 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1994) Pages: 62-80
Date Published
1994
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Intermediate sanctions in the United States, England, and Wales are analyzed, with emphasis on the implications of the operational features of a Florida program and it demonstrated tendency to involve multiple sanctions on the participating offenders.
Abstract
Intermediate sanctions are emerging as major crime control reform strategies in the United States, England, and Wales, despite the absence of empirical justification for these strategies. The basic goal of these strategies is to provide more proportionate and tough sentencing alternatives to prisons and nominal probation. However, intermediate sanctions may both deepen and widen the net of social control by involving offenders in multiple and simultaneous punishments and associated conditions capable of producing unknown consequences. The Florida program includes a probation program, a pretrial diversion program, a pretrial release program, a presentence investigations unit, a work release center, a home confinement program, an alternative community service program, and a mental health unit. These programs are being used as supplements to each other; as a result, offenders often have overlapping conditions and requirements and experience surveillance beyond that administered by the original placement program. These and other findings indicate that seemingly well-intentioned reforms can produce results that are in direct contradiction to their stated purpose. Although split sentences involving incarceration followed by intermediate sanctions are potentially useful for certain offender groups, increased interaction between judges and intermediate punishment officers might facilitate more appropriate matching of offenders to specific intermediate sanctions. Tables, figure, note, and 14 references