Vera Institute of Justice

Overview

The general enthusiasm for "alternatives to incarceration" persists in an uneasy co-existence with hardening views on penal policy and growing fascination with incapacitation as a desirable organizing principle for sentencing policy. Over the last decade, as the jails in New York City and other major cities have become more overcrowded and the public purse has been put under increasing strain by the capital and operating costs of increasing the capacity to imprison, New York's search for real alternatives has intensified.