About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

31 Criminology 549 (1993)
Probation and Parole: Public Risk and the Future of Incarceration Alternatives

handle is hein.journals/crim31 and id is 559 raw text is: PROBATION AND PAROLE: PUBLIC RISK AND THE FUTURE OF INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES* MICHAEL R. GEERKEN HENNESSEY D. HAYES The Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office and Tulane University Jail and prison populations in the United States have continued to grow unabated during the past two decades but crime rates have not declined. Partly in response to the pressures caused by burgeoning correctional populations, the use of alternatives to incarceration has expanded. An ongoing debate centers on the effectiveness of these alternatives. Many criminal justice professionals and some researchers question whether such alternatives seriously restrict the criminal justice system 's ability to inca- pacitate the active offender. This study deals specifically with two alterna- tives to incarceration: probation and parole. We examine offender recidivism for a sample of probationers and parolees active in New Orle- ans, Louisiana, and offer a new approach to addressing the effectiveness issue. Past research has evaluated the effectiveness of alternatives by examining failure rates of diverted offenders. High failure rates, we argue, do not necessarily imply a significant loss of the incapacitative effects of imprisonment. We suggest that a more appropriate measure of the loss of incapacitative effect is the proportion of all offenses committed by persons on probation or parole. Our results suggest that such losses are surprisingly low. The policy implications of our findings are discussed. The use of alternatives to incarceration has become very controversial in recent years. Rapidly increasing jail and prison populations have led to calls for increasing the use of alternatives, while continued high crime rates have led to demands for reductions in their use through mandatory sentencing and tough sentencing guidelines. The contradictory pressures of jail and prison overcrowding and high crime rates have resulted in a heated debate over the continued use of alterna- tives to incarceration. Proponents of alternatives believe that diversion from * This research was supported by the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, grants 86-IJ-CX-0021 and 90-IJ-CX-0019. Contents of this document do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the National Institute of Justice or the U.S. Department of Justice. We would like to thank Sheriff Charles C. Foti, Jr., for his invaluable cooperation and support of this project, as well as James D. Wright, Joseph Sheley, and several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. CRIMINOLOGY VOLUME 31 NUMBER 4 1993

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most