Vera Institute of Justice

Overview

This 1982 article argues that the criminal justice system has no credible capacity to punish or incapacitate offenders except by imprisoning them, and that a substantial amount of jailing results not from judicial preference for imprisonment, but from the perception of judges and prosecutors that incarceration is the only way to insure that the offender will not continue to be a threat to society. The essay recommends a conservative approach to developing the relatively new alternative sentencing field.