NCJ Number
86258
Date Published
1982
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Because of prison overcrowding and inadequate funding of probation, these traditional sentences do not accomplish their intended purpose, so judges must assume the initiative in developing community-based sentencing alternatives.
Abstract
A sentence should punish, deter, protect society, and rehabilitate the offender. When it is clear that these goals are not being achieved by existing sentencing alternatives, sentencing judges become frustrated with their task. The traditional sentences of imprisonment and probation suffer from inadequate funding. Prison overcrowding and the consequent intolerable prison conditions doom the rehabilitative goal and force judges to place too great a reliance on probation. Probation services are customarily near the bottom of the funding ladder, so they are understaffed and ill equipped to be the primary alternative to incarceration. The American Bar Association in its standards for sentencing recommends the establishment of an array of sentencing alternatives with gradations of confinement and restriction, including the use of special facilities oriented toward particular offender needs and the use of part-time confinement and community service. The frustration of judges in trying to meet such standards is that there is no array of sentencing alternatives mandated by legislation. Judges must recognize that it is fruitless to continue sentencing under the current system of limited, ineffective sentencing options, and they must assume the leadership in the development of a corrections system that has the community as its setting, local citizens as its supporters, and the offender as its concern. This calls for creative innovations that do not require huge outlays of money, such as work release and restitution programs. Eleven notes are listed.