Toward the Development of Punishment Equivalencies: Male and Female Inmates Rate the Severity of Alternative Sanctions Compared to Prison

• NCJ Number: 178371
• Journal: Justice Quarterly Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Dated: March 1999 Pages: 19-50
• Author(s): Peter B. Wood; Harold G. Grasmick
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 32 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1995 annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology.

Annotation

A survey of 415 Oklahoma inmates (181 men and 224 women) solicited their views of the severity of various alternative sanctions compared to various lengths of prison terms.

Abstract

Inmates were presented with a description of an alternative sanction. In nearly every case they were already familiar with the alternative through personal experience or hearsay. After reading the description, they were asked to consider 4 months of medium-security imprisonment. Then they were asked to indicate how much of the alternative they would endure to avoid serving 4 months of actual imprisonment. The inmates also answered this question with respect to 8 months and 12 months of imprisonment. If an inmate is willing to endure a maximum of only 3 months of an alternative sanction to avoid 4 months of imprisonment, he/she perceives the alternative as more punitive or more onerous than prison. If the inmate is willing to endure more than 4 months of an alternative to avoid 4 months of imprisonment, then imprisonment is viewed as more punitive or onerous. The alternative sanctions considered were county jail, boot camp, electronic monitoring, regular probation, community service, day reporting, intensive supervision probation, intermittent incarceration, halfway house, and day fine. Women rated alternative sanctions as less punitive than did men, and they were more amenable to participating in them. Prison and probation did not necessarily define the high and low extremes along a continuum of sanction severity. Reservations about participating in alternative sanctions compared to prison focused on the manner in which alternatives are administered, particularly on concerns about abusive or antagonistic employees who operate the programs and on the likelihood of program failure and revocation to prison after investing time and effort in the alternative. These concerns are apparently sufficiently significant to cause rejection of alternatives by inmates who would rather serve out their time and be released without conditions. More work is needed to create a meaningful continuum of sanction severity and punishment equivalencies. 9 tables, 38 references, and appended questionnaire