Alternative Sanctions : Diverting Nonviolent Prisoners to Intermediate Sanctions: The Impact on Prison Admissions and Corrections Costs

Intermediate sanctions include intensive community supervision, home confinement, electronic monitoring, and boot camps. The California Legislative Analysts Office recently concluded: California currently does relatively little in the area of community corrections. Intensive supervision, probation/parole (ISP) is a form of release into the community that emphasizes close monitoring of convicted offenders and imposes rigorous conditions on that release. Home confinement where offenders are ordered to remain confined in their residences for certain specified hours can be ordered as a sanction in its own right or as a condition of ISP. The previous review suggests that it is possible to develop effective community-based sanctions programs but that they are not inexpensive. A major obstacle to diverting prison-bound offenders to alternatives is the public perception that community is not punitive enough. The balance of sanctions between probation and prison appears to have shifted, and at some level of intensity and length, intermediate punishments are the more dreaded penalty.