Sentencing and Corrections

The Goals of Sentencing (essay?)

Retribution

Incapacitation

Deterrence

  1. General

  2. Specific

Rehabilitation

Restoration

Retribution

Taking revenge on the perpetrator

The pain associated with the punishment

Earliest known rationale for punishment

Corresponds with sentencing model “just deserts”

Just Deserts

  • A sentencing model that suggests a criminal offenders deserve the punishment that they receive

  • Primary sentencing tool → imprisonment

Incapacitation

Using imprisonment (or other tools) to reduce the likelihood of recidivism

Protect society by locking offenders up

  • Britain would send prisoners to penal colonies (Australia)

Current prisons are in the middle of nowhere

Separate offenders from society

  • and away from opportunity to reoffend

Rehabilitation

If a majority of offenders find their way back to society… shouldn’t they be in better shape

Otherwise, many find their way back to prison

How can we offer Rehabilitation?

  • work programs, educational programs, anger management, D/A counseling, etc.

Restoration

Restore the victim to the same pre-incident state

Mostly monetarily

Only recently popular

  • Victim’s rights and the 1980s

Restorative justice

  • Balanced and Restorative (BARJ)

Must include the offender (does not ‘other’ them), include them in society

Deterrence

General

Deterring everyone

A goal of criminal sentencing that seeks to prevent others from committing crimes similar to the one for which a particular offender is being sentenced by making an example of the person sentenced

Overall Goal is crime prevention

Deterrence is compatible with the goal of incapacitation

Retribution is oriented towards the past; deterrence is a strategy for the future and aims to prevent new crimes

We tend to do this well

  • must be an understanding of what the punishment will be for a crime

Specific

A goal of criminal sentencing that seeks to prevent a particular offender from engaging in repeat criminality

Aims to reduce the likelihood of recidivism

Do we do this well?

  • hard to determine

What are the alternatives that might impact the goals of specific deterrence that do not involve imprisonment?

Types of Sentences

Indeterminate

Is not a specific amount of time

  • “you will be in prison from 5 - 10 years”

Don’t know how long you will be in prison

When you get released will be determined via the parole board

  • discretion

Parole board asks you general questions

  • “do you take responsibility?” “Do you have a housing plan?”

  • Allows the incarcerated to prove that they are ready for release

  • Not inclined to release people early

When they are released, the parole officer will checks up on them

Typically has guidelines

Ultimate leads to longer sentencing

  • parole board determines

Determine

A specific amount of time

  • “you will serve 8 years”

  • No more and no less

No aftercare supervision, no release plan, no requirement to be a model citizens while incarcerated

No discretion

  • Doesn’t allow for the consideration of mitigating/aggravating circumstances

Good/gain time can lead to people to be released early

  • Good - a day released early per month with no disciplinary

  • Gain - reduction in sentence per every program/certification you complete

Mandatory Sentence

  • ‘if the prosecutor charges you with (this specific charge), and found guilty, you are automatically sentenced with no discretion

    • 3 strike law

    • For habitual offenders → they will never change

If offenders think a sentence was made specifically for them, they are more likely to accept the punishment

Structured Sentencing

Made up of 3 parts:

  1. Proportionally

    1. Severity of sanctions should bear a direct relationship to the seriousness of the crime committed

  2. Social Debt

    1. An offender’s criminal history should be taken into account in sentencing decision

  3. Equity

    1. Similar crimes should be punished with the same degree of severity, regardless of the social or personal characteristics of the offenders

Concurrent or Consecutive

When judges decide sentences, they have to decide between concurrent or consecutive

Up to the judge

Concurrent

Multiple sentences run at the same time

  • 5 years for assault and 10 years for kidnapping

    • Served at the same time, offender serves 10 years

Consecutive

when those multiple sentences run one after the other

  • 5 years for assault and 10 for kidnapping

    • Serves 15 years

How we Punish People

Multiple Methods

  • Fines - paying the money or working the money off

  • Community Service

  • Probation

  • Intermediate Sanctions

    • House arrest/EM/Curfews

    • Intensive Probation

  • Jail

  • Prison

  • Capital Punishment

Probation

Starts with the story of John Augustus

  • Boston shoemaker who has drunkard released into his custody

    • Becomes the first probation officer

    • Takes responsibility for turning the drunkard’s life around in the community

Corrections served in the community

  • Why??

  • Costs Less

  • Still guarantees supervision and surveillance (office visits to the Parole Officers)

  • Allows offender to remain in the community

    • Maintaining social ties (family and employment)

    • Better resources in the community

      • Treatment programs

Probation is present at the local, state, and federal level

Same overall goal with minor variations in the way it is reached

Probation is a suspended prison sentence

  • allows offenders to stay in the community as long as they can abide by certain conditions

    • Like… don’t lie to you PO, don’t leave the jurisdiction without permission, no drugs, no alcohol, seek and obtain employment

  • Maintains the public’s interest in punishment and control with a less expensive and usually as effective way to punish offenders (when compared to incarceration)

Probation is supervised by probation officer

  • maintains control by visits (house, office)

  • PO will likely also check up on offenders through phone calls with acquaintances

  • Lots of discretion in terms of violations

  • POs do not need a warrant to enter your home

Two types of violations

  • technical (not abiding by conditions) and new charge

    • I missed my PO meeting

    • Too many violations, the defendant gets arrested and goes to court

      • They still get due process

  • If violation is serious enough probation can be revoked→ remainder of suspended sentence in the clink

Incarceration

The most popular, most visible form of punishment

1.5 million people incarcerated

Two types (not the same)

  1. Prison

  2. Jail

Prison

  • Used for long term offenders (more than a year or two) who commit more serious crimes

  • Long term housing implies more services needed/potentially offered

Jail

  • used for short term confinement of pre-trail detention

  • Not as many services as average stay is about 60 to 90 days

  • jails admit about 12x as many offenders as all other forms of corrections

  • Admit people right off the street

    • Revolving door

Parole

A release mechanism

Not a sentence

  • Parole offers sentenced offenders the ability to be released early

If they have meet 85% of their original sentence

  • parole guarantees that (generally) there is aftercare (like probation) and a release plan (like where the offender going to live)

  • Parole conditions are the same as probation conditions

    • Probation is a sentence

    • Parole is a release mechanism

  • and parole can be revoked if offender cannot meet conditions

Some states have abolished parole

  • others use “truth and sentencing laws” must serve 85% of there sentence before being considered for parole

Capital Punishment

Furman V Georgia - Pause on Capital punishment to see if it is arbitrary based in racial discrepancies

Gregg V Georgia - reinstates capital punishment. Automatic bi-furcated trial

  1. Are you guilty?

  2. What sentence should they receive? The defense and prosecutor argue the mitigating circumstances (did the person have trauma in their past?)

Atkins V Virginia - individuals who have reduced culpability while they are incarcerated should not faced capital punishment

  • should a person who have diminished capacity (developed dementia) face capital punishment?

  • SCOTUS says no

Roper v Simmons - At what age should the minimum be set for individuals face capital punishment

  • SCOTUS says the minimum age is 18

Capital Punishment exonerees

  • people who have been found not guilty after being sentenced

Methods (vary from state to state), Lethal Injections, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, firing squad

  • PA is in a moratorium (pause by the executive branch) on capital punishment

    • They are not executed but can be sentenced to capital punishment

  • Some states have abolished capital punishment