Between probation and revocation: A study of intermediate sanctions decision-making

✍ Scribed by Patricia M Harris; Rebecca D Petersen; Samantha Rapoza

• Book ID: 104269528
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 219 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0047-2352
• DOI: 10.1016/s0047-2352(01)00090-3

✦ Synopsis

There is growing recognition that intermediate sanctions are essential to the establishment of accountability and proportionality in punishment decision-making. These emphases are overlooked in most research on intermediate sanctions, which focuses nearly exclusively on their impact on public safety and prison crowding. The present study addressed this deficit by exploring the extent to which proportionality and accountability influenced the use of intermediate sanctions in response to probation violators in a large urban county. Using discriminant analyses, the study found that indicators of proportionality and accountability helped to predict which violators remained under traditional supervision, graduated to intermediate sanctions, or got revoked. Stronger results emerged in analyses that took both technical violations and new arrests into account than in analyses involving new arrests only. The article considers the findings' implications for probation policy and practice, and for research on intermediate sanctions as tools for facilitating proportionality and accountability.