NCJ Number
163572
Date Published
1996
Length
55 pages
Annotation
This is a critique of intensive probation supervision (ISP) programs in the United States.
Abstract
The chapter provides evidence that ISP programs do not achieve their stated goals of substantially reducing prison overcrowding, saving public monies, or reducing recidivism. Many probation officers and departments support ISP enthusiastically, however, and its more punitive features are strictly enforced in many jurisdictions. The proliferation of ISP in the United States in the last decade appears to have had less to do with its stated goals than with its effectiveness in achieving latent bureaucratic, organizational, political, professional, and psychological goals of probation departments and officers. There is a place for ISP programs and other intermediate punishments. Some offenders deserve punishments that are more than nominal but less than all-encompassing; ISP is one of these. However, until most states implement sentencing guidelines that include a full range of punishments of graded severity, it is unlikely that these mid-range punishments will be preponderantly used for the mid-range offenders for whom, in principle, they are designed. Tables, notes, references