Nowadays, intermediate sanctions can be defined as various limitations that are applied to the criminals and offenders, who neither are on probation nor imprisoned (Bennett, 2015). The primary reason for the presence of the intermediate sanctions is the fact that it is necessary to reduce expenditure on maintaining prisons and control the actions of the offenders while discovering them as a part of the community (Bennett, 2015). To review this aspect in more details, the article Current Findings on Intermediate Sanctions and Community Corrections by Bennett was analyzed. Consequently, the primary goal of the paper is to summarize the major findings and purpose of the selected research study, criticize it, and determine the implications of the chosen sanctions.
Article Summary
In the first place, Bennett (1995) was trying to provide the rationale for using other intermediate sanctions apart from probation and incarceration and assess their effectiveness. As for the hypothesis of this research study, the author clearly states that probation is not the most effective punishment since it is often violated with no positive effect on rearrests (Bennett, 1995). In this case, the article discovers different intermediate sanctions such as house arrests, fines, and electronic monitoring and evaluates their effectiveness with the assistance of the literature review (Bennett, 1995). Simultaneously, this author can be trusted, as Bennett had experience in conducting similar research studies and a clear understanding of the topic.
Speaking of the findings, the article revealed that day fines could be discovered as one of the effective sanctions based on the active adaptation of this sanction in New York (Bennett, 1995). In turn, house arrest tended to have positive outcomes while one of the major drawbacks of the electronic monitoring was its costly implementation (Bennett, 1995). As for the transactional system, this approach did not comply with the perceived expectations, and it did not deliver the desired results. A similar situation took place with the drug treatment program, as the representatives of the legislative authorities stated that it did not meet its initial goals that were linked to treating addictions successfully (Bennett, 1995). Speaking of boot camps, these sanctions received a high recognition initially, but after that, they lost their meaning and effectiveness. Overall, it could be said that discovering these sanctions assisted in understanding their efficacy and underlined some matters that require improvement.
Critique
When conducting the analysis of the article, I can freely state that the publication has a sufficient flow of information and tends to provide logical reasoning to prove the central claim. I clearly support author’s point that the issue of incarceration continues to exist, and probation is not the most effective resolution to this problem. For example, the State of New York continues to introduce various projects such as Adolescents Diversion Program to reduce the spending on the maintenance of prisons (Berman & Wolf, 2014). Nonetheless, the publication seems persuasive, as the author relies on different research studies conducted in the past and presents clear points to prove or disprove the position of using a particular sanction. For example, the scholar reviews the situations in different states such as California, New York, Alabama, and Florida (Bennett, 1995).
Nonetheless, one of the potential ways to improve it is to conduct the actual research study that will imply observing the behavior of the offenders. In this instance, this empirical analysis will have a beneficial impact on understanding the consequences of the particular sanction from the psychological perspective. Simultaneously, these findings will help depict the aspects of the program that have to be improved. In turn, the author should focus on minimizing the levels of personal bias, as it seems that they have a clear impact on the outcomes of the evaluations. In this case, conducting a sufficient literature review and finding support in the recent articles can be used to improve the quality and validity of the results.
Implications
Apart from the summary and the critique of the article, it is essential to discuss the implications while describing the factors and defining the most effective sanctions. In addition to reducing the density of the population in prisons, there are several aspects that unite community correction programs. For instance, they increase the safety of the society by supervising the offender and contribute to the faster socialization and rehabilitation (Alarid, 2016). Thus, the most common factors that influence their selection are dependent on the legislation of the state, its need to reduce the incarceration and crime rates, and the available financial resources.
Simultaneously, the sufficient analysis of the intermediate sanctions provided by the article reveals that the most effective approaches are day fines and house arrests. The fines have a tendency to be formed based on the income of the offender (Alarid, 2016). They can be regarded as a punishment with the positive outcomes, as the individuals do not consider repeating crimes due to the substantial loss of financial resources. As for the house arrest with electronic monitoring, apart from having high levels of rearrests, this program has a well-established image and vehemently controls the actions of the offender while minimizing his/her effect on the society (Avdija & Lee, 2014). In the end, the analysis of this article not only assisted in reviewing the reasons for the development of the community-based programs and their types but also identified the most effective alternatives to imprisonment.
References
Alarid, L. (2016). Community-based corrections. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Avdija, A., & Lee, J. (2014). Does electronic monitoring home detection program work? Evaluating program suitability based on offender’s post-program recidivism status. Justice Policy Journal, 11(1), 1-15.
Bennett, L. (1995). Current findings on intermediate sanctions and community corrections. Corrections Today, 1(1), 86-97.
Berman, G., & Wolf, R. (2014). Alternatives to incarceration: The New York story. Government, Law and Policy Journal, 16(2), 36-40.