Creative Sentencing Should Be Limited (From America's Prisons: Opposing Viewpoints, P 206-213, 1991, Stacey L. Tipp, ed. - See NCJ-159858)

• NCJ Number: 159884
• Author(s): S G Calabresi
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Greenhaven Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article argues that creative sentences present many problems for the administration of justice.

Abstract

Creative sentences give judges excessive discretion in sentencing, confers too much power on judges by allowing them to design the laws and apply them in certain situations, and gives judges too much power to identify sentencing beneficiaries and to tailor punishments. Many creative sentences have been illegal because the State legislatures have not given the courts the authority to impose those sentences for the crimes that have been committed. While creative sentences may help relieve prison overcrowding conditions, they fail to fulfill the sentencing objectives of retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation and restitution. Better alternative sanctions would include house arrest, shock incarceration, scarlet letter punishments, intensive supervision programs, and community service programs.