NCJ Number
176057
Date Published
1997
Length
450 pages
Annotation
This volume details alternative sentences, intermediate sanctions, and other forms of sentencing that do not rely on incarceration on the one hand or traditional probation on the other and that effectively punish offenders for their crimes and address common sentencing concerns, including rehabilitation, deterrence, retribution, and justice.
Abstract
The book also provides basic analysis and information necessary to match the sentence with the offender. The first two chapters describe the status of sentencing in the United States today, the reasons for prison overcrowding and the collapse of traditional probation, the four factors that influence the ultimate court-ordered disposition, and the nature and use of probation today. Subsequent chapters discuss alternatives and intermediate sentences for specific types of crimes ranging from nonviolent property crimes to homicides, using examples from State and Federal courts and jurisdictions around the country and cases involving high-risk, chronic offenders whose records qualify them for life imprisonment in many jurisdictions with habitual-offender or three-strikes laws. Further chapters examine each of the major components of alternative and intermediate sentences, including restitution, other monetary sanctions such as day fines, community work service, mandatory treatment, intermediate sanctions, incapacitation without incarceration, and alternative uses of incarceration. Each sanction is examined with respect to its history, rationale, use, statutory and case law, and practical use as a sentencing option. The final section examines how courts, probation officials, and others can enforce these sanctions, as well as how they can be evaluated. The last chapter provides detailed checklists that cover factors that should be considered in fashioning, determining, enforcing, and evaluating criminal sentences. The author has been a probation officer at the Quincy District Court in Massachusetts for 20 years. Sample forms, chapter notes, table of laws, table of cases, index, and 311 references