Incarceration versus Intermediate Sanctions
Introduction
Less than five years ago more than eight million individuals were currently incarcerated, probated, or paroled in the United States (Cullen, Jonson, & Nagin 49). Understandably, incarceration and immediate sanctions are both prevalent concepts within the field of Criminal Justice and Criminal Law. Incarceration is a type of penal control used to detain criminals viewed as posing a threat to public safety. Intermediate sanctions are types of punishments that purposely keep the criminal offender from being incarcerated while their actions are still monitored and regulated. Both types of criminal sanctions vary depending upon the crime committed, victims involved, and numerous other factors, and researchers have long debated whether incarceration or intermediate sanctions prove most to be most effective (Lowenkamp, Flores, Holsinger, Makarios, & Latessa 369).
Analysis: Incarceration
The debate surrounding incarceration has existed for hundreds of years, but within recent decades, researchers have started questioning the overall effectiveness of incarceration. Undoubtedly, criminals exists that cannot be trusted to live a life outside of prison walls due to numerous factors. Therefore, it is evident that incarcerating criminals does serve a good purpose for the criminal and rest of society. However, what is not as clear is why policies that focus on increasing punitive sanctions, such as mandatory sentencing for particular offenders, has not resulted in a decrease of crime or prison populations; in fact, these policies have done just the opposite for incarceration and recidivism rates (Cullen et al. 50).
While completing an analysis on incarceration, it was the universal sentiment among the majority of scholarly works that contemporary regulations and laws regarding get-tough measures sentencing guidelines are failing to be effective. The following bullet points highlight the most referenced reasons as to why punitive sanctions are inadequate:
- Despite what the majority of the public believes, it is much more costly to keep offenders incarcerated than it is to invest in adequate rehabilitation efforts.
- When an offender remains incarcerated it removes them from the community. In certain cases, this may be the safest, but for non-violent offenders especially, it incapacitates involvement from the community and a chance for restorative justice.
- Incarceration fails to provide inmates a chance to acquire new skills, problem-solving and conflict-resolution techniques, and other important coping skills that can deter their chances of recidivism.
- Experts suggest that increasingly and continuous high rates of incarceration perpetuates the crime cycle rather than deterring it (Cullen et al. 62-64).
Analysis: Intermediate Sanctions
As previously mentioned, intermediate sanctions can vary depending on the type of offense committed and the offender’s criminal background. Primarily, intermediate sanctions such as supervised probation and parole, and electronic monitoring inside and outside of the home, are designed to both punishment and deter the offender. Additionally, these types of supervised sanctions allow offenders to remain in the community rather than being imprisoned.
However, intermediate sanctions serve other purposes besides those afforded to applicable offenders; these sanctions relieve overcrowded prison populations. Research suggests that reformists are calling for a return to intermediate sanctions and away from mass incarceration due to the unbearable rates of overcrowding occurring in American prisons. Furthermore, due to the recent and large-scaled privatization of the prison system, it is simply becoming too costly to house millions of individuals in jail daily (Cullen et al. 63).
In addition, the effectiveness of rehabilitative programs, such as drug court for example, have shown to depend upon the association of treatment integrity and program philosophy (Lowenkamp et al. 369). More intensive types of supervision have resulted in the lowest rates of recidivism overall when compared to other types of intermediate sanctions and incarceration. There are legitimate criticisms of the push to widen the use of intermediate sanctions within recent years. Penologists, for example, argue that the current practices of probation increase the likelihood that offenders will recidivate due to their criminal background and strict regulations on future activity (Phelps, 65).
Incarceration and intermediate sanctions each carry their own differentiating sets of positive and negative aspects. Overall, research shows that mass incarceration is becoming too costly for the country to withstand. Personally, I feel that the valid argument on the ineffectiveness of incarceration more than rectifies why intermediate sanctions prove more effective at reducing rates of recidivism, and hopefully, deterring crime. Moreover, statistics show that we can no longer ignore the millions of offenders incarcerated and charged each year with non-violent drug crimes (Drucker 1112). The fact that the overwhelmingly majority of offenders incarcerated each year are jailed on drug-related offenses proves the system’s inability to address, and most importantly rehabilitate, the ever-growing population of drug abusers, manufacturers, and traffickers. In addition, the majority of offenders that entering the penal system are unskilled and under educated (Phelps, 69). I personally believe that community involvement, skills-trade programs, and intense supervisory and rehabilitative programs have outturned the most effective results.
Conclusion
In summation, recent research reflects the need for a return to rehabilitation within the criminal justice system. While types of intermediate sanctions do prove more hopeful in reducing rates of recidivism and deterring crime, a larger emphasis on rehabilitation is desperately lacking in these programs. Issues pertaining to the causation of crime are constantly changing, and so too should the efforts to truly rehabilitative offenders and their underlying issues. Rather than attempts to hide criminal behind walls, a community-oriented approach is needed to rebuild the relationships between offenders and those within the community.
Bibliography
Cullen, Francis, Cheryl Jonson, & Daniel Nagin. “Prisons Do Not Reduce Recidivism: The High
Cost of Ignoring Science.” The Prison Journal, 91.3. (2011): 48-65. Web. 6 Dec 2014.
Drucker, Ernest. “Drug Law, Mass Incarceration, and Public Health.” Hein Online. (2013):
1098-1124. Web. 6 Dec 2014.
Lowenkamp, Christopher, Anthony Flores, Alexander Holsinger, Matthre Makarios, & Edward
Latessa. “Intensive Supervision programs: Does Program Philosophy and the Principles of Effective Intervention Matter?” Journal of Criminal Justice, 38.4. (2010): 368-375. Web. 6 Dec 2014.
Phelps, Michelle. “The Paradox of Probation: Community Supervision in the Age of Mass
Incarceration.” Law & Policy, 32.1-2. (2013): 51-80. Web. 6 Dec 2014.
