Probation officers tend to view intensive supervision as being tougher and more effective than regular probation. However, the available evidence, according to this author, indicates that intensive supervision programs fail to reduce prison overcrowding, save public money, or affect recidivism rates. Nonetheless, these programs are being implemented in many jurisdictions because they serve organizational and bureaucratic, normative, and professional and psychological goals. Intensive supervision has succeeded in increasing the institutional credibility of probation, and therefore, will probably continue to be an intermediate sanction of choice in the future.