Intermediate Punishments: Intensive Supervision, Home Confinement, and Electronic Surveillance (Issues in Crime and Justice)

Intermediate punishments are those sanctions that exist somewhere between incarceration and probation on the continuum of criminal penalties. The intermediate punishments discussed in this book include intensive community supervision, home confinement, and electronic surveillance. Intensive supervision and home confinement may be used as a joint or independent sanctions; electronic surveillance is a method of enforcing curfews or extended periods of home confinement. Many intensive supervision programs are the direct response to prison overcrowding. Other intensive supervision programs resulted from the growing use of risk and needs classification schemes with probationers. They share several important features. First, they are community-based penalties. The offender remains in the community, usually living at the same residence and maintaining existing employment and family ties. Second they are designed to be humane not punitive. Offenders must adhere to curfews, and accept intense monitoring of their activities at home and elsewhere. Third, these sanctions are expected to protect the community from crime. Fourth these sanctions are expected to cost less than institutions.