Perceptions of Punishment: Inmates and Staff Rank the Severity of Prison Versus Intermediate Sanctions

Abstract

Proponents of the newer intermediate sanctions argue that there are “equivalencies” of punishment between community-based and prison sentences and that, at some level of intensity, community-based programs have roughly the same punitive “bite.” There is little research, however, on the relative severity of intensive supervision in comparison to other sanctions. This study was designed to examine how offenders and staff in Minnesota rank the severity of various criminal sanctions and which particular sanctions they judge equivalent in punitiveness. In addition, we explored how both groups rank the difficulty of commonly imposed probation conditions and which offender background characteristics are associated with perceptions of sanction severity. Our results suggest that there are intermediate sanctions that equate, in terms of punitiveness, with prison. For example, inmates viewed 1 year in prison as “equivalent” in severity to 3 years of intensive probation supervision or 1 year in jail, and they viewed 6 months in jail as equivalent to 1 year of intensive supervision. Although inmates and staff ranked most sanctions similarly, the staff ratings were higher for 3 and 6 months in jail and lower for 1 and 5 years probation. The two groups also differed on the difficulty of complying with individual probation conditions: Staff judged most probation conditions as harder for offenders to comply with than did inmates. Our results provide empirical evidence to support what many have suggested: It is no longer necessary to equate criminal punishment solely with prison. At some level of intensity and length, intensive probation is equally severe as prison and may actually be the more dreaded penalty. The results should give policymakers and justice officials pause, particularly those who suggest they are imprisoning such a large number of offenders—not to use prisons' ability to incapacitate and rehabilitate—but rather to get “tough on crime.”

Educational Outcomes After Serving with Electronic Monitoring: Results from a Natural Experiment

“…Additionally, in EM-programs including a provision to attend school, contact with pro-social classmates, instead of criminal inmates, can increase the chances of young offenders continuing in the school system. 1 It is important to mention that empirical studies have questioned this notion of non-custodial sanctions as less harsh or severe to the individual, e.g., through examples of offenders choosing prison instead of early release with intense supervision and through offenders rating non-custodial sanctions as more severe than short-term prison sentences (Descenes et al 1995;Payne and Gainey 1998;Petersilia and Descenes 1994;Wood and May 2003). In the Danish context, however, about 80 percent of the offenders rated electronic monitoring as less severe than prison, when asked in a questionnaire after the EM-program (Jørgensen 2011).…”

Deterrent Effect of Curfew Enforcement: Operation Nightwatch in St. Louis, 2003-2005

“…The purpose of sanctioning is not severity in and of itself, but to make the juvenile accountable, and relates to the concept of tipping models (Kleiman, unpublished). It is not always the most severe punishments that invoke the greatest dread, but often those that are merely inconvenient and repetitive (Petersilia and Piper-Deschenes, 1994). Nightwatch seeks to have the severity of the punishment fit the severity of the offense, and with a restorative focus on repairing harm.…”

Punitiveness in Australia: electronic monitoring vs the prison

“…report negative experiences based on the constraints placed upon them by the conditions of their sentence, and the associated loss of liberty [141]. For some offenders, intensive supervision is even ranked more severe than imprisonment [144,177]. EM is, conclude Payne and Gainey, "painful … [and] punishes offenders and therefore provides a measure of retribution" ( [141], p.…”