NCJ Number
114643
Date Published
1988
Length
145 pages
Annotation
After analyzing how America arrived at the current predicament of massive crowding in jails and prisons, this book presents a plan to reduce the use of incarceration, chiefly by placing more nonviolent offenders in expanded community-based programs while maintaining incarceration for violent offenders.
Abstract
An analysis of criminal justice policies that have produced current jail and prison overcrowding concludes that mandatory incarceration for certain nonviolent offenses and expanded prison stays have not been effective in reducing crime, although they have been costly. The analysis further concludes that the solutions to crowded prisons are well within the means of public policymakers and are not the inevitable result of an unmanageable 'crime wave.' Public policymakers can reduce prison crowding by eradicating mandatory sentencing laws and establishing rational sentencing and classification policies based on measurable objectives, reducing inmates' length of stay, and expanding community-managed and community-based alternatives to incarceration. Specific strategies proposed in this book are to view prisons as a finite resource, reduce the number of people sent to prison, reduce the length of stay of select inmates, carefully analyze criminal justice policies, and create forums for the public to participate in correctional plans and programs. Appended statistical background for factors affecting incarceration rates study, risk assessment instruments, subject index, 56-item bibliography.