Intermediate Sanctions in Corrections

CHAPTER 10

– 187 – SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ON INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS Intermediate sanctions have not been established long enough for researchers to determine their overall effectiveness. While some important and comprehensive evaluations have been conducted, much more research is necessary. Some of the research is favorable, for instance with respect to fine payments, completion of community service, and day reporting centers. Other research raises doubts about the effectiveness of intermediate sanctions, such as the effectiveness of military boot camp models and intensive supervision programs focusing on control and monitoring. Overall, the research to date has indicated that intermediate sanctions are not the panacea they were once promoted as being. The following overall conclusions can be drawn: Very few offenders have participated in intermediate sanctions. Although intermediate sanctions have proliferated over the past ten years, relatively few offenders who could have been placed have participated in these programs. According to Petersilia (1999), less than six percent of the total adult probation and parole population is participating in intensive supervision programs. Only about one percent of probationers and parolees are under electronic monitoring. On a typical day, there are no more than about 10,000 participants in boot camp programs. As to day CHAPTER 10 Conclusion INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS IN CORRECTIONS – 188 – reporting centers, somewhere around 15,000 offenders are participating. In total, according to Petersilia, it appears that at most, 10% of probationers and parolees participate in intermediate sanctions. Because of the small number of offenders who participate, there has been no appreciable reduction in prison and jail populations. Many intermediate sanctions have been poorly implemented and inadequately funded. Poor implementation and failure to operate programs as they were designed has been problematic (Petersilia, 1999). Research has shown that intermediate sanctions are typically used for probationers and not populations for whom the programs are designed. Vague targeting and selection criteria as well as reluctance to place higher-risk offenders into intermediate sanctions have contributed to this problem. Additionally, weak and insufficient offender monitoring and enforcement functions have often led to ineffective supervision and consequently a higher likelihood of failure among participants. Inadequate funding is thought to be the likely cause of this problem. Front-end intermediate sanctions are subject to net widening. In large part, intermediate sanctions are not being used for the offenders that they are designed for: those offenders otherwise headed for jail or prison. They are too often filled with the incorrect offender populations or offenders who would otherwise have received a lesser sanction, such as probation. When filled with offenders likely to receive a less intrusive and costly sanction, intermediate sanctions are used inappropriately and “widen the net” of correctional control. This increases the burden of punishment and correctional cost and fails to have any favorable impact on correctional populations. For impact on correctional crowding and new prison admissions to be realized, the targeting and selection for intermediate sanctions must be stringent and capture jail and prisonbound offenders. Back-end intermediate sanctions, especially large programs such as New York’s boot camp prison, do divert offenders from jail and prison terms appropriately and therefore have some impact on correctional crowding and costs. Intermediate Sanctions represent a viable alternative to incarceration for many different types of offenders. This system of sanctions should be the focus of continued research and CONCLUSION – 189 – development to better understand, improve, and expand this essential set of correctional alternatives. Misuse of intermediate sanctions compounds problems resulting from failure due to technical violations. Termination from intermediate sanctions is due mainly to technical violations rather than the commission of new crimes. This is good news for public safety. It is generally agreed that failure as a result of technical violation results primarily from the intensive monitoring and control that reveal more violations, rather than a higher volume of actual violations among offenders. In other words, offenders in intermediate sanctions probably do not commit more technical violations than probationers or parolees, but they are more likely to be detected and punished when they do. When offenders who are not in need of imprisonment and who would be adequately supervised on regular probation or parole are placed into intermediate sanctions, technical program failures become much more concerning. When they fail as a result of rule violations, their punishments are typically more severe and when these punishments involve incarceration, intermediate sanctions work against attempts to reduce correctional populations and costs. In sum, the more stringent surveillance uncovers more violations and when...