We solicited offender-generated exchange rates between prison and several noncustodial sanctions from a sample of 588 offenders currently serving community-based punishments. We then regressed these exchange rates on demographic, attitudinal, and correctional experience indicators. Males, Blacks, older offenders, offenders with prison experience, and those who agree most strongly with reasons to avoid alternative sanctions are likely to serve less of a given alternative to avoid imprisonment. In addition, offender-generated exchange rates are used to develop a ranking of sanction severity that includes prison and nine intermediate sanctions. Implications of these findings for correctional policy, practice, and a theory of sentence severity are discussed.
Apospori, E., & Alpert, G. (1993). Research note: The role of differential experience with the criminal justice system in changes in perception of severity of legal sanctions over time. Crime & Delinquency, 39, 184-194.
2.
Byrne, J. M. (1990). The future of intensive probation supervision and the new intermediate sanctions. Crime & Delinquency, 36, 6-41.
3.
Clear, T. R. (1994). Harm in American penology: Offenders, victims, and their communities. Albany: State University of New York Press.
4.
Clear, T. R., & Hardyman, P. L. (1990). The new intensive supervision movement. Crime & Delinquency, 36, 42-60.
5.
Crouch, B. M. (1993). Is incarceration really worse? Analysis of offenders’ preferences for prison over probation. Justice Quarterly, 10, 67-88.
6.
Fleisher, M. (1995). Beggars and thieves: Lives of urban street criminals. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
7.
Hawkins, R., & Alpert, G. P. (1989). American prison systems: Punishment and justice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
8.
Irwin, J., & Austin, J. (1997). It’s about time: America’s imprisonment binge (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
9.
McClelland, K. A., & Alpert, G. (1985). Factor analysis applied to magnitude estimates of punishment seriousness: patterns of individual differences. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1, 307-318.
10.
Morash, M., & Schram, P. J. (2002). The prison experience: Special issues of women in prison. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
11.
Morris, N., & Tonry, M. (1990). Between prison and probation: Intermediate punishments in a rational sentencing system. New York: Oxford University Press.
12.
Paternoster, R., Brame, R., Mazerolle, P., & Piquero, A. (1998). Using the correct statistical test for the equality of regression coefficients. Criminology, 36(4), 859-866.
13.
Petersilia, J. (1990). When probation becomes more dreaded than prison. Federal Probation, 54, 23-27.
14.
Petersilia, J., & Deschenes, E. P. (1994a). Perceptions of punishment: Inmates and staff rank the severity of prison versus intermediate sanctions. The Prison Journal, 74, 306-328.
15.
Petersilia, J., & Deschenes, E. P. (1994b). What punishes? Inmates rank the severity of prison vs. intermediate sanctions. Federal Probation, 58, 3-8.
16.
Petersilia, J., & Turner, S. (1990a). Comparing intensive and regular supervision for high-risk probationers: Early results from an experiment in California. Crime & Delinquency, 36, 87-111.
17.
Petersilia, J., & Turner, S. (1990b). Diverting prisoners to intensive probation: Results of an experiment in Oregon (N-3186-NIJ). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
18.
Pettit, B., & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69, 151-169.
19.
Pogarsky, G. (2002). Identifying“deterrable” offenders: Implications for research on deterrence. Justice Quarterly, 19, 431-452.
20.
Pollock, J. M. (2004). Prisons and prison life: Costs and consequences. Los Angeles: Roxbury.
21.
Spelman, W. (1995). The severity of intermediate sanctions. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 32, 107-135.
22.
Tonry, M. (1996). Sentencing matters. New York: Oxford University Press.
23.
Von Hirsch, A., Wasik, M., & Greene, J. (1992). Scaling community punishments. In A. von Hirsch & A. Ashworth (Eds.), Principled sentencing (pp. 368-388). Boston: Northeastern University Press.
24.
Wood, P. B., & Grasmick, H. G. (1999). Toward the development of punishment equivalencies: Male and female inmates rate the severity of alternative sanctions compared to prison. Justice Quarterly, 16, 19-50.
25.
Wood, P. B., & May, D. C. (2003). Race differences in perceptions of sanction severity: A comparison of prison with alternatives. Justice Quarterly, 20, 605-631.
26.
Wood, P. B., May, D. C., & Grasmick, H. G. (in press). Gender differences in the perceived severity of boot camp. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation.
