The Unmet Promise of Alternatives to Incarceration

Abstract

A careful review of the research literature on alternatives to incarcera tion suggests that their promise of reducing the prison population has remained largely unmet. For each of the reform strategies reviewed, the nonincarcerative options were transformed, serving criminal jus tice system values and goals other than reducing imprisonment. Sen tencing alternatives, such as restitution and community service, were found to enhance the sanctions of probation and fines instead of re placing incarceration. Similarly, postincarceration release programs, such as work release and work furlough, often escalated the level of control over clients and served primarily to control populations within prison systems. Increasing the availability of community correctional facilities has not reduced populations in secure confinement. Com munity correction legislation appears less likely to reduce incarcera tion than to change the location of imprisonment from the state in stitutions to county jails. Moreover, initial declines in state prison commitments can be neutralized by modifying over time other sen tencing or release policies that increase prison populations. Although community correction legislation may have redistributed correctional costs and shifted decision making from state to local levels, it is ques tionable whether it has made a long-term contribution to reduced im prisonment. Progress in alternatives will remain frustrated until re forms are more carefully implemented and until proponents of alter natives are willing to test their ideologies through rigorous research. Furthermore, a new political consensus must emerge outside the crim inal justice system in which the values of punishment and public safe ty are rationally balanced with fiscal constraints and competing claims for public revenue.