MENU TITLE: Key Legislative Issues in Criminal Justice: Intermediate Sanctions.
Series: NIJ Research in Action
Published: January 1997
13 pages
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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

National Institute of Justice
Research in Action

Jeremy Travis, Director
January 1997

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Highlights

State policymakers interested in developing
effective and affordable sentencing policies have
turned in recent years to intermediate sanctions as
part of a menu of sentencing choices that better
match the severity of punishment to the seriousness
of the crime. Intermediate sanctions are also
intended to permit more rational allocation of
correctional and sanctioning resources to safely
supervise minor offenders in community programs
while confining serious offenders behind bars. The
principal forms of intermediate sanctions are
intensive supervision programs (ISPs), home
confinement (with or without electronic
monitoring), community service orders, prison boot
camps, day fines, and day reporting centers.

To date, use of these sanctions has not achieved
anticipated benefits. Assessing intermediate
sanctions on a national level is difficult,
however, because they have sprung up independently
in many different jurisdictions. Only a few
programs in a handful of jurisdictions have been
evaluated, and it is not clear whether evaluated
programs fairly represent broader practice.
Available research findings indicate the 
following:

o Evidence suggests that ISPs and community service
have not rehabilitated or deterred participants
from committing future crimes any better than
traditional sentencing options. Positive results on
recidivism rates have been found from home
detention and electronic monitoring. Boot camp
research has been inconclusive. Boot camps
accompanied by intensive treatment-oriented
aftercare, however, have shown positive results;
but it is not clear whether the boot camps or the
aftercare made the difference.

o Problems with intermediate sanction programs may
be attributed to design flaws, constraints in the
local environment, and insufficient control over
how and on what type of offender the sanctions are
imposed.

o The cost of operating these programs has often
exceeded expectations.

In spite of mixed results in realizing anticipated
benefits of intermediate sanctions, their
continuation is warranted because they enable more
rational allocation of correctional and sanctioning
resources -- making the punishment fit the crime. The
availability of more alternative sentencing choices
should limit the inappropriate use of either
probation or confinement.

To improve the likelihood of success, State
legislatures should consider developing policies
that govern how intermediate sanctions are used.
These policies might include specific goals for
particular sanctions, definitions of the types of
offenders eligible for each sanction, or guidelines
that govern the application of intermediate
sanctions in specific cases.

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Key Legislative Issues in Criminal Justice:
Intermediate Sanctions

by Dale Parent, Terence Dunworth, Douglas McDonald,
and William Rhodes

By the early 1990s most States had adopted
intermediate sanctions. Nevertheless, the expansion
or modification of intermediate sanctions remained
a major issue in 1995 for State policymakers who
wanted both to keep dangerous criminals off the
streets and to curb rapidly growing prison and jail
costs. Intermediate sanctions have appeared
promising because they provide a means to punish
nonviolent offenders without increasing the
population of many overcrowded prisons. The
principal forms of intermediate sanctions are
intensive supervision programs (ISPs), home
confinement (with or without electronic
monitoring), community service orders, prison boot
camps, day fines, and day reporting centers (DRCs).

This Research in Action discusses the origins and
goals of intermediate sanctions, their effects on
crime reduction and criminal justice sentencing
practices, and their costs. It concludes with an
analysis of future policy issues.

Origins and goals

Unlike other key issues facing policy-makers today-
-such as sentencing commissions, mandatory
sentencing, and juvenile transfers -- intermediate
sanctions have been usually introduced by local,
rather than Federal or State, innovators. Judges,
probation or jail administrators, and private
organizations(1) established the programs to expand
the existing narrow range of sentencing options
(usually, just fines, probation, or confinement). 

The local origin of intermediate sanctions has
three important implications: 

o Because intermediate sanctions have sprung up
independently in many different jurisdictions,
describing the phenomenon on a national level is
difficult. Only a few programs in a handful of
jurisdictions have been evaluated, and it is not
clear whether evaluated programs fairly represent
broader practice.

o Goals for a particular type of intermediate
sanction (e.g., DRCs) may vary greatly from one
program to the next. 

o Individual programs often pursue multiple,
sometimes conflicting goals. This strategy can be
intentional to broaden community and political
support. However, if goals are conflicting, they
usually lead to ambiguous and inconsistent
operating policies. Such confusion about purpose
may occur when jurisdictions stack intermediate
sanctions on top of one another (such as sentencing
an offender to both community service and home
detention).

Studies typically have focused on particular
programs rather than on the broader systems in
which these programs have operated. Hence, little
information exists about how intermediate sanctions
have affected a jurisdiction's overall sentencing
and imprisonment practices. For example, an
intermediate sanction may reduce the demand for
prison space by being applied to a substantial
number of prison-bound offenders. However, vigorous
enforcement of that intermediate sanction
ultimately may increase the demand for prison space
to handle violators of the sanction's conditions of
supervision, which are usually more stringent than
those of standard probation.

There have been few attempts to establish public
policies to control development or application of
intermediate sanctions, and two potentially
conflicting forces appear to be driving their
expansion. For example, some policymakers support
intermediate sanctions as alternatives for selected
prison-bound offenders, while others support them
as intensified punishment for offenders who are
insufficiently sanctioned or controlled by regular
probation. Fiscal conservatives support
intermediate sanctions as a way to slow the growth
of correctional costs, while those focusing on the
need to punish criminals want a broader array of
punitive sanctions for offenders placed on
probation.

Crime reduction

There is little evidence that ISPs(2) and community
service(3) either rehabilitated or deterred
offenders from committing additional crimes better
than the sentencing options they replaced. The
findings on boot camps are inconclusive.(4)
Overall, there have been no significant differences
in outcomes, but boot camps with intensive
treatment-oriented aftercare have shown positive
results. It remains to be determined, however,
whether the particular boot camp program, the
aftercare program, or the combination of the two
was the key factor in causing the better outcomes.
Studies of home detention and electronic monitoring
reported positive results with respect to
recidivism,(5) but did not account for diminished
incapacitative effects,(6) which were lost when
offenders were diverted from prison to home
detention, thereby skewing the findings in favor of
home detention. No outcome evaluations have been
completed for DRCs.

Effects on sentencing and correctional practices

Intermediate sanctions can fail to have the
intended effects on sentencing practices in a
jurisdiction because of design flaws, constraints
of the political environment, or insufficient
control over the imposition of the sanction. 

Design flaws. Boot camps are often intended to
reduce prison and jail populations and thereby
alleviate crowding. To do that they must admit
offenders who would have been incarcerated for a
significant period of time if the boot camp did not
exist.(7) Boot camps, particularly those in local
jails, frequently target offenders who otherwise
would serve short periods of confinement. Hence,
those who complete boot camps may serve longer
total confinement terms than inmates who do not
participate in them. Since boot camps generally
accept offenders who volunteer for the programs,
the longer total incarceration period reduces
inmates' incentive to participate, which causes
admissions to drop and further reduces the
potential of boot camps to affect confinement
levels. 

Constraints in the environment. With respect to
reducing prison populations and spending, studies
of intermediate sanctions generally have found
strong resistance among criminal justice officials
to change established sentencing patterns,
especially if the change is intended to imprison
fewer offenders. The easier route has been to use
intermediate sanctions to intensify punishments for
those not otherwise bound for prison or jail.
Moreover, legislators have frequently restricted
boot camps to nonviolent first offenders,(8)
following a practice instituted by some
first-generation boot camps. The selection of such
a þlightweightþ population means boot camps cannot
target the kinds of offenders needed to reduce
prison or jail populations. In fact, populating
boot camps with lightweight offenders has had the
opposite effect -- it has increased confinement
populations by exposing offenders who would have
received probation to an increased risk of
committing technical violations and being
subsequently imprisoned.(9)

Insufficient control over imposition of sanctions.
Studies of intermediate sanctions and pretrial
diversion programs have found that decisions about
a new sanction's position in the established
hierarchy of sentencing options has depended in
great part on which officials have had the most
leverage over case dispositions. In a world where
plea negotiation has been the rule rather than the
exception, prosecutors' decisions often have played
a central role in determining sentences -- a
situation that has often not been fully appreciated
by those who design and administer intermediate
sanctions. Therefore, if intermediate sanctions are
to be applied to the intended group of offenders,
prosecutors may need to participate in the design
and development of specific programs. Likewise,
judges may need to be involved. Judges often resist
establishment of intermediate sanctions unless they
have sufficient discretion in applying the sanction
in individual cases. 

Costs and benefits

Agencies operating intermediate sanction programs
often make positive statements about their cost
effectiveness. However, these statements may be
based on cost-benefit analyses that have not
adequately accounted for the real costs of
sanctions or their alternatives. Most analyses have
inappropriately used average daily costs rather
than marginal costs(10) to compute savings, and
many have not taken capital spending into account
satisfactorily. 

The few studies that have attempted rigorous
cost-benefit analyses of intermediate sanctions
found that their financial payoff was smaller than
expected. For example, one study found that ISPs
were far more costly than previously assumed; in
fact, ISP did not result in cost savings at any of
the 14 sites studied during a 1-year followup
period.(11) However, it should be noted that in
general, variation in program costs have been
related more to revocation rates for rule
violations than to actual program operations. Costs
to adjudicate high numbers of technical violations
and to reincarcerate such offenders can quickly
erode any potential cost savings.(12) 

When boot camps have been properly designed to
maximize savings in prison beds, their impact on
prison crowding and costs has been significant. For
example, New York made several key decisions to
maximize bed-space savings: the Department of
Corrections (DOC) selected þtougherþ cases than
most other boot camps, thereby saving a substantial
number of confinement months for each boot camp
graduate, and it implemented boot camps on a large
scale. New York officials have claimed that
substantial cost savings have resulted and that,
since boot camp graduates have not recidivated at a
higher rate than regular inmates, public safety has
not been compromised.(13)

However, a multijurisdictional study found that
only two of the five boot camps examined saved
jurisdictions a substantial number of prison beds
by their use of boot camps.(14) Although boot camps
may reduce the need for bed space, it is difficult
to prove that their use avoids future capital
costs.(15) Moreover, a sensible cost analysis would
include the costs of aftercare programs, which may
be substantial. 

It appears that it will be very difficult for
jail-based boot camps to reduce confined
populations or costs. The low ceiling on jail
confinement (no more than 1 year in most States,
and often considerably less) means that
meaningfully reducing the time served may not be
possible for those completing jail-based boot
camps.(16)

The costs of intermediate sanctions, in general,
also have varied according to (1) their type of
administration (either as stand-alone sanctions by
a volunteer or private agency or as add-ons to a
probation sentence), (2) the extent of enforcement
required, and (3) the sites chosen. For example,
the costs of administering and enforcing community
service by a stand-alone private agency in New York
City were substantial and approximated those of
imprisonment.(17) 

Future issues for policymakers

Even if the use of these new sanctions has not
achieved anticipated benefits, many reasons remain
for encouraging their expansion. A longer menu of
sentencing choices could lead to better matching of
the severity of punishment to the seriousness of
crimes. Intermediate sanctions can permit more
rational allocation of correctional and sanctioning
resources so that minor offenders can be safely
supervised in community programs, while serious
offenders are confined. More options should limit
the inappropriate use of probation or prison for
offenders who deserve mid-range sanctions. 

State policymakers interviewed for this project
were very interested in developing effective and
affordable sentencing policies. Many wanted to
respond to constituents' fear of crime and demands
for tougher sanctions, while recognizing the need
to limit spiraling correctional costs. Intermediate
sanctions are being considered in many States as a
means to limit growth in confinement sentencing.

To address issues discussed earlier of conflicting
objectives, States may need to develop policies
(such as sentencing guidelines for nonconfinement
and confinement sanctions) that govern the use of
intermediate sanctions in individual cases. Such
policies should be designed to ensure that overall
use of intermediate sanctions is consistent with
goals established by the legislature and with broad
principles that govern sentencing (such as
proportionality, uniformity, and neutrality). In
particular, guidelines for intermediate sanctions
need to limit additive use of intermediate
sanctions (heaping two or three intermediate
sanctions on a particular offender) and control
decisions to revoke probation in order to minimize
use of confinement for minor rule violations. 

Legislatures may also want to consider developing
policies to ensure a more effective and systematic
use of intermediate sanctions so that their
potential to punish and reduce correctional costs
can be achieved. Such policies should specify goals
for each sanction, locate each category of
intermediate sanctions in the continuum between
standard probation and total confinement, and
define target populations for each category (e.g.,
determine which sanctions should target confined
offenders for early release, thereby enhancing
standard probation, and which should be used for an
offender population needing treatment and/or
services). States may also want to develop a
financial structure to steer development of
intermediate sanctions in intended directions. This
structure could be a variation of current community
corrections acts, in which a central State agency
sets standards for local programs and administers
performance-based financial aid. That is, the State
would provide greater support to jurisdictions
whose intermediate sanctions meet or exceed
performance objectives specified by the agency. 

Policies on intermediate sanctions can be linked to
those on mandatory sentences because they must
confront the issues of balancing the costs of
incarceration with the need to enhance safety in
our communities. Many have argued that long
mandatory sentences are neither cost effective nor
effective at crime prevention because they confine
individuals beyond their criminally active years.
Research has indicated that as offenders age, their
risk of recidivism decreases. As part of their
administrative policies on intermediate sanctions,
States could consider some form of administrative
review to determine if continued confinement is
required for those serving long mandatory
sentences. 

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Notes

1. Private organizations might identify a need for
a new sentencing option, implement a program, and
then contract with local officials to provide
program "slots" for convicted offenders.

2. Petersilia, J., and S. Turner, "Intensive
Probation and Parole," in Crime and Justice: A
Review of Research, vol. 17, ed. Michael Tonry,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993;
Petersilia, J., Intensive Probation Supervision for
High-Risk Offenders: Findings From Three California
Experiments, Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation,
1990.

3. McDonald, D., Punishment Without Walls:
Community Service Sentences in New York City, New
Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press,
1986.

4. MacKenzie, D.L., and C. Souryal, Multisite
Evaluation of Shock Incarceration, Final Summary
Report to the National Institute of Justice,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, 1994; MacKenzie,
D.L., J.W. Shaw, and V.B. Gowdy, "An Evaluation of
Shock Incarceration in Louisiana: Executive
Summary," Unpublished Report to the National
Institute of Justice, Washington, D.C., 1990.

5. Baird, S.C., and D. Wagner, "Measuring
Diversion: The Florida Community Control Program,"
Crime and Delinquency, 36(1990): 112-25; Austin,
J., and P. Hardyman, "The Use of Early Parole with
Electronic Monitoring to Control Prison Crowding:
Evaluation of the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections Pre-Parole Supervised Release with
Electronic Monitoring," Unpublished Report to the
National Institute of Justice, 1993, described in
Voncile B. Gowdy, The Intermediate Sanctions,
Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice.

6. Many intermediate sanctions draw offenders from
two pools: (1) those who would have gotten regular
probation and (2) those who would have been
imprisoned if the intermediate sanction did not
exist. Even if some intermediate sanctions lower
recidivism rates for the first group, they may
raise recidivism rates for the second group, who
could commit new crimes during the time in which
they would have been incarcerated. A balanced
measure of crime control must consider recidivism
rates for both groups and use the total recidivism
rates to assess the impact of the intermediate
sanctions. 

7. Parent, D.G., "Boot Camps Failing to Achieve
Goals," Overcrowded Times 5(1994):8-11.

8. Parent, D.G., "Shock Incarceration: An Overview
of Existing Programs," Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, 1989; MacKenzie, L., L. Reichers Gould,
and J. Shaw, "Shock Incarceration: Rehabilitation
or Retribution?" Journal of Offender Counseling,
Services, and Rehabilitation, 14(1980):25-40.

9. Parent, "Boot Camps Failing to Achieve Goals,"
8-11.

10. Average daily costs are computed by totaling
all costs associated with a service (e.g.,
imprisonment) and dividing by the number of
person-days of service provided. This figure should
include some costs that do not vary with the number
of offenders served, some which vary only if there
are substantial changes in the number of offenders
served, and some -- such as consumables -- that vary
with each offender served. The latter are termed
marginal costs. Intermediate sanctions usually have
a small net impact on the number of confined
inmates. If this is the case, it is more
appropriate to assess costs and benefits by
analyzing marginal costs, not average daily costs.

11. Petersilia and Turner, "Intensive Probation and
Parole."

12. Parent, "Boot Camps Failing to Achieve Goals,"
8-11.

13. Clark, D., D. Aziz, and D. MacKenzie, "Focus on
New York Shock Incarceration," Unpublished Report
to the National Institute of Justice, Washington,
D.C., 1993.

14. MacKenzie and Souryal, Multisite Evaluation of
Shock Incarceration. 

15. Parent, "Boot Camps Failing to Achieve Goals,"
8-11.

16. Ibid., 8-11.

17. McDonald, Punishment Without Walls.

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Dale Parent, associate; Terence Dunworth, Ph.D.,
senior associate; Douglas McDonald, Ph.D., senior
associate; and William Rhodes, Ph.D., senior
scientist, are with Abt Associates Inc. This study,
sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, was
prepared under contract 94-IJ-CX-C007.

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Points of view in this document are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the official
position of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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The National Institute of Justice is a component of
the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims
of Crime.

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NCJ 161838

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About the Key Legislative Issues Series

In 1995 the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
contracted with Abt Associates Inc. to interview
legislators and policy-makers throughout the
country to identify important criminal justice
topics being considered by State legislatures and
to determine the information they need to help them
make more informed decisions. Altogether, 89
legislators, legislative staff members, and other
criminal justice policymakers (e.g., sentencing
commission members) were interviewed in 23 States.
The interviews were conducted during the opening
weeks of the 1995 State legislative sessions.

The sites and the respondents were chosen to
reflect the diversity of the States. Some of the
factors taken into consideration were geographic
size and region, urban/rural mix, and existence (or
nonexistence) of a sentencing commission in the
State government. The respondents selected included
the chairpersons of relevant legislative committees
(such as the criminal justice, judiciary, and
corrections committees), a representative from the
governor's staff, and an official with the
executive branch (such as the commissioner of
corrections or the sentencing commission
chairperson). Other people whom they suggested were
also interviewed, and, as might be expected,
legislators frequently referred the interviewers to
their staff.

These policymakers identified four topics as
important items on their legislative agendas:

o Sentencing commissions.

o Intermediate sanctions.

o Mandatory sentencing, including three-strikes
laws.

o Transferring serious juvenile offenders to adult
courts.

State policymakers expressed a strong desire for
more timely and useful information about research
findings on important criminal justice policy
issues they were addressing. However, they voiced
reservations about gleaning useful information from
technical research reports.

Reviews and summaries of the research literature on
the four key topics identified present the
information in a way that is more accessible to
policymakers. Of the four reports, this one
summarizes what is known about the use and effects
of existing intermediate sanctions.

Titles in the series

The Impact of Sentencing Guidelines (NCJ 161837) 

Intermediate Sanctions (NCJ 161838)

Mandatory Sentencing (NCJ 161839)

Transferring Serious Juvenile Offenders to Adult
Courts (NCJ 161840)

These summary reports have been published in NIJ's
Research in Action series. Copies can be obtained
from the National Criminal Justice Reference
Service (NCJRS), Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-
6000; telephone 800-851-3420; or e-mail
askncjrs@ncjrs.org. The reports can also be viewed
and downloaded from the NCJRS World Wide Web site,
the Justice Information Center
(http://www.ncjrs.org).