This article highlights two types of ameliorative responses to the problem of prison and jail crowding: those responses aimed at diverting some prison-bound offenders to alternative programs and those designed to regulate prison population levels more directly. It argues that both types of strategies raise practical and philosophical issues that can be resolved satisfactorily only through a comprehensive reassessment of the full spectrum of criminal penalties and how they are used.
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References
1.
1. National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Corrections (Washington, DC: Department of Justice (DOJ), 1973), p. 597.
2.
2. Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice (Washington, DC: DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1983), p. 73.
3.
3. Edward Latessa and Harry Allen, “Halfway Houses and Parole: A National Assessment,”Journal of Criminal Justice, 10(2): 154-155 (1982).
4.
4. The full range of costs involved is discussed in Gail Funke, “The Economics of Prison Crowding,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
5.
5. Robert Martinson, “What Works? Questions and Answers about Prison Reform,”Public Interest, p. 22 (Spring 1974).
6.
6. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: DOJ, 1982), pp. 248-249.
7.
7. The examples of programs and strategies cited are drawn from my personal knowledge or one of the following sources: Robert Mathias and Diane Steelman, Controlling Prison Populations: An Assessment of Current Mechanisms (Fort Lee, NJ: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1982); Bruce Cory and Stephen Gettinger, Time to Build? The Realities of Prison Construction (New York: Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 1984); National Research Council Panel on Sentencing Research and Alfred Blumstein, Research on Sentencing: The Search for Reform (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1983), vol. 1; Prisoners in 1983, Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (Washington, DC: DOJ, BJS, 1984); Probation and Parole 1982 (Washington, DC: DOJ, 1983).
8.
8. See Michael Smith, “Will the Real Alternatives Please Stand Up,”New York University Review of Law and Social Change, 12(1): 171-197 (1984).
9.
9. See Graeme Newman, Just and Painful: A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals (New York: Macmillan, 1983).
10.
10. See Anne Bolduc, “Jail Crowding,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
11.
11. Thomas Quinn, “Focus for the Future: Accountability in Sentencing,”Federal Probation, 48(2): 10-18 (Mar. 1984).
12.
12. Utah, for example, decided to stop supervising Class B and C misdemeanants and to reduce the length of supervision for other offenders on probation in order to provide intensive supervision of high-risk cases. See “A Report to the Citizens of Our State by the Board of Corrections” (Utah State Division of Corrections, Salt Lake City, 1983).
