Between Prison and Probation: Intermediate Punishments in a Rational Sentencing System - Hardcover

Morris, Norval; Tonry, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019506108X ISBN 13: 9780195061086

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1990

Synopsis

Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity, and in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system.
In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarised choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant."
Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of interdediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.

About this title

About the Author

About the authors:
Norval Morris is Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Chicago and the author of ten books on criminology. Michael H. Tonry is Managing Director of the Castine Research Corporation. Together they edit Crime and Justice--A Review of Research.

Reviews

In recent years both the "rehabilitation model" of sentencing and the "lock 'em up" approach to punishment have failed to stand up to evaluative research. These two well-known criminologists propose greater reliance upon such intermediate sentencing alternatives as fines, house arrest, community service, and combinations of such alternatives. This will be an important addition to the conservative criminological literature of recent years, and will undoubtedly be widely discussed and reviewed for the next few years. For a critique from the liberal viewpoint, see Elliott Currie's Confronting Crime: An American Challenge ( LJ 10/15/85). For academic libraries.
- John Broderick, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019506108X
• ISBN 13: 9780195061086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296