NCJ Number
144951
Journal
Southern California Law Review Volume: 66 Issue: 1 Dated: (November 1992) Pages: 209-216
Date Published
1992
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The "good news" that the expanded use of intermediate sanctions could reduce incarceration rates without measurably increasing recidivism may not find a receptive audience.
Abstract
The news should significantly affect criminal justice policy in general and the U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines in particular, but probably will not, due to the popularity of incarceration without regard to whether it deters crime. The get-tough approach will remain popular for its own sake and further research into the viability of intermediate sanctions will be limited. Even prison overcrowding--used as a way to obscure the financial consequences of criminal justice policies that increase imprisonment--may have made such policies more appealing by causing greater suffering to prisoners. In Bell v. Wolfish, the Supreme Court set standards for double celling based on information that did not reflect the reality of most jails, and upheld visual body cavity searches despite findings of their being conducted in an abusive manner. In Rhodes v. Chapman, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court's decision by focusing on the lower court's failure to produce specific evidence of harm caused by overcrowding. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has never attempted to keep prison population within capacity; in 1991, the Federal Bureau of Prisons operated at 165.8 percent of capacity. 32 footnotes