Inmates Rank the Severity of Ten Alternative Sanctions Compared to Prison by Peter B. Wood and Harold G. Grasmick Abstract A survey of 415 inmates (men and women) serving brief prison terms for nonviolent offenses revealed that there were several alternative sanctions that inmates perceived as significantly more punitive than traditional incarceration. That challenged the conventional wisdom that prison and probation defined the high and low extremes along a continuum of criminal sanctions. Results also indicated that female inmates were more amenable to alternative sanctions than were men. We found that some alternatives were rated as more punitive than imprisonment because: a) they had a very high rate of program failure, and inmates would have been returned to prison after having invested significant time and effort in the program, and b) many inmates cited abusive treatment at the hands of program administrators and officers that dramatically increased the likelihood that inmates would have failed the program in question and have been returned to prison. Many inmates with significant experience in the system simply viewed prison time as less onerous than many alternative sanctions and would rather have done more time with no strings attached. Those inmates rated prison as significantly less punitive than many alternative sanctions. It is hoped that the results of this project and others will assist criminal justice professionals and practitioners to devise reliable punishment equivalencies and a valid continuum of criminal sanctions. The paper concludes with a brief critique of problems associated with research examining offenders' perceptions of the severity of sanctions. INTRODUCTION Recent corrections policy has extolled the virtues of what has been variously referred to as "intermediate sanctions," "alternative sanctions," "intermediate punishment," "alternatives to incarceration," "sentencing alternatives," and a host of other titles. In general, what was being described was a variety of punishments that were considered to fall somewhere along a continuum of severity/onerousness with traditional probation at one extreme and traditional incarceration at the other. Thus, intermediate sanctions may have included elements of probation, incarceration, and alternatives to incarceration, and these sanctions may have had a variety of purposes, including incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and desert/retribution. Alternative sanctions had attained the status of a panacea of sorts for overcrowded state and federal correctional systems. As an example, a recent National Institute of Justice (NIJ) survey asked over 2,500 directors of local and state criminal justice agencies to provide specific areas they believed should be priorities for research or evaluation. At the local and state levels, jail administrators, j judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation and parole agency directors, and state directors of corrections identified alternative sanctions as the number one priority for research and evaluation (NIJ, 1995). The concept of alternative sanctions has been attractive for several reasons. Most importantly, they were believed to reduce prison overcrowding by channeling offenders out of prisons more quickly and by placing offenders in community-based alternatives like house arrest, halfway houses, community service, and the like. Second, the level of risk many offenders represented is too much for probation, but not enough for prison. Third, alternative sanctions typically were less expensive than traditional incarceration. Fourth, alternatives presumably offered offenders a better chance for rehabilitation, while a prison stay may have a negative impact on the behavior of offenders. Fifth, such alternatives would seem to have allowed a continuum of sentencing options that has yet to be fully realized, but which would allow more discriminating sentencing tailored to the individual offender's specific needs and the offense in question (Byrne, Lurigio, & Petersilia, 1992; Morris & Tonry, 1990; NIJ, 1993). It is the fifth rationale that is examined in this research study. In nearly every description of alternative sanctions, authors were careful to note that such sanctions fell somewhere along a continuum between probation and incarceration (Morris & Tonry, 1990; NIJ, 1995; NIJ 1993; Von Hirsch & Ashworth, 1992). Indeed, the general public, state and federal legislators, academics, and many criminal justice practitioners adhered to the conventional wisdom that probation and incarceration defined the extremes of the continuum. Despite this nearly universal belief on the part of the public and policy-makers, there is a small, but growing, body of work that suggested this particular vision of a sentencing continuum may be severely flawed (Crouch, 1993; Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b; Spelman, 1995). Issues Regarding the Relative Severity of Punishments Rather than assuming that alternative sanctions necessarily rank above probation and below incarceration in terms of onerousness, one might logically ask if there are some alternatives that are experienced as more severe than traditional imprisonment, or possibly less severe than probation. It seemed likely that some general agreement existed among inmates regarding the relative punitiveness of a variety of sanctions, but it was by no means clear that the continuum envisioned by policy-makers mirrored that of prison inmates who knew the experience of both prison and alternatives. Theoretically, intermediate sanctions should fill the gap between probation and traditional incarceration, but in practice that may not be true. The issue centers on the question of who determines which sanctions are more severe than others. The development of alternative sanctions and a rating of their presumed severity has been the responsibility of legislators and criminal justice practitioners who may have had no reliable means for rating the severity of nontraditional sanctions. This has meant that punishment "equivalencies" proposed by legislators and practitioners were not based on experiential data but were based on guesswork by persons with no direct knowledge of what it was like serving the sanction (Morris & Tonry, 1990). This was analogous to a film critic rating a film without seeing it. Certainly the readers of the critic's column would be concerned if the critic had not even seen the film. That kind of criticism brought into question the conventional belief which to some degree was supported by the extant literature, that alternative sanctions were bounded by probation at one extreme and incarceration at the other. To this date, only five previous studies have examined offenders' opinions regarding the perceived severity of criminal sanctions (Apospori & Alpert, 1985; Crouch 1993; McClelland & Alpert, 1985; Petersilia & Deschenes 1994a, 1994b; Spelman 1995). Of those studies, just two (Petersilia & Deschenes 1994a, 1994b; Spelman 1995) included a variety of newer intermediate sanctions in addition to traditional probation and imprisonment. Petersilia and Deschenes (1994a, 1994b) gathered information from 48 male inmates who were primarily nonviolent and eligible for participation in an intensive community service program. Spelman examined 128 male offenders, 32 of whom resided in prison at the time (others were serving regular probation, intensive supervision probation, or were in local confinement). Further, the 32 offenders in prison were sampled randomly, and included offenders ineligible for alternative sanctions due to their prior record or the severity of their offenses (Spelman, 1995). Those two studies represented the entire knowledge base of offenders' perceptions of the severity of alternative sanctions compared to traditional incarceration. The current study was conceived out of a concern for the lack of data regarding offenders' viewpoints on alternative sanctions and built on the scarce body of work addressing this issue. From a marketing point of view, a company developing new products finds it necessary to engage in what is called "consumer research" to determine if its customers will buy the new products, and how to revise or modify products to generate maximum consumption and satisfaction. Toward that end, the project can be interpreted as a form of consumer research, the consumers being convicted offenders and the product being alternative sanctions. The primary research questions were: 1) How willing are offenders to participate in alternative sanctions? 2) What influences offenders' willingness to participate? 3) Do male and female offenders differ in their views of alternative sanctions? 4) How do offenders rank the punitiveness of alternative sanctions compared to traditional imprisonment? To answer those questions, we analyzed data from 415 inmate surveys (men and women) administered in Oklahoma correctional facilities in October, 1995. Survey Instrument and Data Collection The survey instrument was developed with significant input from inmates themselves. In May, 1995, the principal investigators spent an afternoon with a focus group of seven inmates at an Oklahoma correctional center to explore the best way of examining the issue of the punitiveness of alternative sanctions compared to prison. All of these inmates had served previous prison terms and all had experienced one or more alternative sanctions. One inmate admitted experience with five different alternatives. Based on that meeting a draft instrument was developed, and in June, 1995, the survey was pretested on 25 inmates at the same correctional center. After the pre-test, the inmates and investigators engaged in intensive discussion about the survey, the wording of specific items, the inclusion of reasons for and against participating in alternatives, and the inmates' own experiences with alternative sanctions. Based on the pre-test and the inmates' comments, the survey was revised and a final version was printed in August 1995. In October, 1995, a sample of 875 inmates (450 men and 425 women) was drawn from Department of Corrections automated files. For selection in the sample the offender must have been convicted of a nonviolent controlling offense, must not have had a history of habitual or violent behavior, and must have received a sentence of five years or less in the Oklahoma correctional system. We used those selection criteria because they roughly identified the population of offenders most likely to have been eligible for some form of alternative sanction, and because inmates who met the criteria would have been most likely serve no more than one year actual time in prison. Thus, the group of offenders resembled those most likely to have qualified for a range of alternative sanctions. We sampled both men and women, because while Oklahoma boasted the third highest overall incarceration rate in the nation, it registered the highest female incarceration rate of all 50 states, and we felt this distinction was significant enough to warrant special attention. Further, a review of the published literature on the relative punitiveness of punishments revealed no previous work examining female offenders' perceptions of the severity of alternative sanctions. For those reasons women comprised half of our sample and a majority of the survey respondents. The research team met with case managers from eight correctional and community corrections centers on site in October, 1995. Printouts identifying inmates at each facility who met the selection criteria and who had been randomly selected were distributed to the case managers. The case managers also received detailed instructions regarding the administration of the survey, likely questions to anticipate, and ways of helping inmates complete the survey if they required assistance. During October, the survey was administered in classroom settings to small groups of inmates who met the selection criteria, had been randomly selected, and who voluntarily agreed to participate. Collection of data concluded with 415 useable surveys (224 women, 181 men, and 10 who did not report their gender). All data analyses in the report were based on an initial N of 415 inmates. The project represented the largest and most comprehensive study of inmates' perceptions of the severity of alternative sanctions to date. Measuring Relative Severity: The Development of Punishment Equivalencies As Spelman (1995) pointed out, there were three traditional means of determining the relative severity of a variety of punishments. The method of comparative judgments was the simplest in that it presented the respondent with a series of choices between two punishments and asked which was more severe. If the set of choices was prepared carefully, a rank ordering of all options was possible. A second method, magnitude estimation, involved presenting the respondent with a standard level of punishment (say one year in prison) worth 100 points. The respondent was then asked to assign a score to each of several other punishments compared to the 100 points that were equivalent to one year in prison. In that case zero would have been no punishment, while punishment perceived as more severe than one year imprisonment would have been given scores higher than 100, and half as severe would have received 50 points. As Petersilia and Deschenes (1994b) suggested, however, the validity of magnitude estimation depended to a great degree on the mathematical aptitude of the respondents--which was often questionable among inmate populations. Finally, magnitude production through adjustment of comparative judgments was another technique, but that method worked best among sophisticated populations like corporate executives (Keeney & Raiffa, 1976) and was assumed appropriate only for personal interviews due to the amount of explanation and coaching involved. That method had never been used for estimation of punishment scores among offenders, but had proved to be extremely effective in other applications. All three techniques had their strengths and weaknesses, but most recent work on punishment severity employed paired comparisons or magnitude estimation. Extensive consultation with offenders led us to develop a different technique which combined features of all three of these methods, and which allowed offenders to make realistic comparisons based on their own experiences serving time and participating in alternative sanctions. That method generated a more sophisticated comparison that allowed the offender to choose the amount (in days/months/years) of an alternative sanction they would have endured to avoid a specified length of imprisonment. Since all inmates knew the experience of imprisonment, and had either experienced the alternative personally or had detailed knowledge of the alternative through the experience of acquaintances, the offender was able to make an "educated" comparison and offered his/her own ratio reflecting the punishment equivalency between imprisonment and alternative. Inmates were presented with a description of an alternative sanction. In nearly every case inmates were already familiar with the alternative through personal experience or hearsay. After having read the description, inmates were asked to consider four months medium security imprisonment. They were then asked to indicate how much of the alternative they would have endured to avoid the four months imprisonment. Inmates then answered the same question with respect to eight months and 12 months medium security imprisonment, respectively. If an inmate was willing to endure a maximum of only three months of an alternative sanction to avoid four months imprisonment, the inmate perceived the alternative as more punitive/onerous than prison. If the inmate was willing to endure more than four months of alternative to avoid four months imprisonment, then imprisonment was viewed as more punitive/onerous. The same observation was made with reference to eight and 12 months imprisonment. Finally, inmates were asked if they had ever personally participated in each of the ten alternative sanctions examined in the study. In that manner we were able to identify offenders with direct personal experience of each sanction. The actual survey format of the question appears below. (1) County Jail. If you are sent to county jail, you spend less time there than you would in prison. However, living conditions are much worse than in prison. Your freedom is very restricted, and there is less time for you to do what you want or be involved in activities. You are generally in a cell 24 hours a day, and there is usually no yard time allowed. Jail time is generally viewed as worse than prison time. Think about four months actual time spent in a medium security correctional center. What is the maximum number of months of county jail you would take to avoid serving four months actual time in prison? (Put an X on the line below to indicate your answer) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ______________________________________________ Months of County Jail The X is equal to __________ months in county jail. (Write the number) Think about eight months actual time spent in a medium security correctional center. What is the maximum number of months of county jail you would take to avoid serving eight months actual time in prison? (Put an X on the line below to indicate your answer) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ______________________________________________ Months of County Jail The X is equal to __________ months in county jail. (Write the number) Think about 12 months actual time spent in a medium security correctional center. What is the maximum number of months of county jail you would take to avoid serving 12 months actual time in prison? (Put an X on the line below to indicate your answer) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ____________________________________________ Months of County Jail The X is equal to __________ months in county jail. (Write the number) Have you personally ever served time in a county jail? 1. Yes 2. No The format was repeated for the nine other alternatives listed in a note at the end of the manuscript. The descriptions of the sanctions presented here are identical to how they appeared in the survey instrument. That allowed a direct comparison of alternatives as opposed to imprisonment, and indirectly provided a crude ranking of alternatives and prison along a continuum of punitiveness/onerousness. While such a ranking was not based on a direct magnitude estimate of the relative punitiveness of sanctions, it was based on offenders' own evaluations of imprisonment and sanctions they had personally experienced. In addition to the comparison of alternative sanctions to imprisonment, the survey collected detailed background information about the offenders including age, education, marital status, number and ages of children, and information about the offenders' experience in correctional settings--their longest sentence served, and the total amount of time they had spent in prisons and jails. Finally, based on offenders' comments regarding their reluctance to enroll in alternative sanctions, we included sections examining the reasons why an offender might have participated in an alternative and reasons why an offender might have avoided participation. The Inmate Sample While the sample consisted of 875 male and female inmates who met our selection criteria (nonviolent, less than five years sentence), just less than 800 of those inmates were available for participation in the survey. Some had been released by the time the survey was administered, some had been transferred to another institution, and some were serving an administrative sanction and were unable to participate in the survey. Department of Corrections personnel estimated that just under 800 inmates in the original sample would have been truly eligible for participation in the survey. Many inmates who would have been eligible simply refused to participate in the survey, as was their right. As noted above, we concluded data collection with 415 respondents (181 men, 224 women, and 10 who did not report their gender) representing a better than 50 percent response rate based on those inmates actually available for participation. Aside from the common characteristics of being convicted of non-violent controlling offenses, and having been sentenced to five years or less for their current offense, Table 1 displays some basic descriptive information about the inmate respondents. TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics of the Inmate Sample, Men and Women Men Women All Respondents N of Cases* Average Age Average Years Education Marital Status Single, Never Married Single, Divorced or Separated Currently Married Widowed (Spouse Died) R Has At Least 1 Child Total Time in All Prisons Median Longest Single Prison Stay Median 181 34 11.34 36.0 (63) 39.4 (69) 23.4 (41) 1.1 ( 2) 65.7 (119) 2 yrs 3 mo 1 yr 4 mo 224 32 11.31 38.1 ( 83) 37.6 ( 82) 19.3 ( 42) 5.0 ( 11) 79.5 (178) 1 yr 4 mo 1 yr 3 mo 415 33 11.32 37.2 (147) 38.2 (151) 21.0 ( 83) 3.5 ( 14) 71.8 (298) 1 yr 9 mo 1 yr 3 mo *Men and women do not add up to 415 due to 10 respondents who did not identify their gender. Overall, the inmate respondents had served an average of one year and nine months total time in prisons, with males averaging two years three months and females averaging one year four months. The average duration of their longest single prison stay was about 15 months. The inmates averaged 33 years of age, and just over 11 years education. Nearly 80 percent of female inmates and 65.7 percent of males had at least one child. Despite the high rate of parenthood, only 23.4 percent of males and 19.3 percent of females were currently married. Inmates' Willingness to Participate in Alternative Sanctions There were several ways to represent the punitiveness of the ten alternative sanctions examined in this study. We started with the percent of inmate respondents that refused to participate in the various sanctions--those who would not do any amount of an alternative to avoid four, eight, and 12 months imprisonment. Table 2 displays the percent of inmate respondents (men and women) who refused to participate in the specified alternative sanction. As might have been expected, the percent of inmates who refused decreased as the length of actual imprisonment increased. TABLE 2 Percent of Inmates Who Refused to Participate in the Specified Alternative Sanction to Avoid Four Months, Eight Months, or 12 Months Medium Security Imprisonment (Number of Inmates Refusing in Parentheses) MONTHS OF ACTUAL MEDIUM SECURITY IMPRISONMENT 4 Months 8 Months 12 Months ALTERNATIVE SANCTION County Jail Boot Camp Electronic Monitoring Regular Probation Community Service Day Reporting ISP Inter. Incarceration Halfway House Day Fine 28.9% (112) 29.9% (116) 21.9% ( 85) 20.9% ( 81) 12.6% ( 49) 19.6% ( 76) 26.3% (102) 15.2% ( 59) 9.3% ( 36) 28.4% (110) 20.4% (79) 23.7% (92) 14.2% (55) 14.2% (55) 10.1% (39) 15.2% (59) 20.4% (79) 11.9% (46) 7.0% (27) 24.7% (96) 19.8% (77) 23.2% (90) 14.4% (56) 12.4% (48) 8.8% (34) 15.7% ( 6) 18.8% (73) 11.6% (45) 6.7% (26) 24.0% (93) Observe that nearly 30 percent of respondents refused to endure any amount of boot camp to avoid four months medium security imprisonment, and the percentage dropped to a 23.2 percent refusal rate in the case of 12 months imprisonment. It seemed that the least objectionable alternative was the halfway house, with less than 10 percent of inmates refusing to enroll to avoid four months imprisonment, a figure that dropped to 6.7 percent in the case of 12 months actual time in prison. The data in Table 2 indicated that over 20 percent of inmates would have refused to enroll in any amount of boot camp, county jail, day fines, intensive supervision probation (ISP), electronic monitoring, or regular probation to avoid just four months actual imprisonment. Table 2 suggests that for many inmates, several alternatives were significantly more punitive than actual imprisonment, to the point where inmates would avoid all contact with the alternative even if it meant spending less time in prison. We thought the rate of refusal to participate would have varied by gender, and assumed that women would have been more amenable to alternatives since they often had young dependents needing their care outside prison (note in Table 1 that nearly 80 percent of female inmates had at least one child). Table 3 demonstrates the refusal rates of men compared to women. The greatest gender differences were evident in the cases of boot camp, regular probation, and day fines, with women registering far lower refusal rates than men. There seemed to have been a general pattern that supported our prediction of women having been more willing to participate in the ten alternatives than men. TABLE 3 Percent of Male and Female Inmates Who Would Not Participate in the Specified Alternative Sanction to Avoid 4/8/12 Months Medium Security Imprisonment (Number of Inmates Refusing in Parentheses) MONTHS OF ACTUAL MEDIUM SECURITY IMPRISONMENT 4 Months 8 Months 12 Months ALTERNATIVE SANCTION County Jail Male: Female: Boot Camp Male: Female: Electronic Monitoring Male: Female: Regular Probation Male: Female: Community Service Male: Female: Day Reporting Male: Female: ISP Male: Female: Inter. Incarceration Male: Female: Halfway House Male: Female: Day Fine Male: Female: 30.4% (55) 27.7% (62) 36.5% (62) 25.0% (56) 19.3% (35) 22.8% (51) 27.1% (49) 14.3% (32) 19.3% (35) 8.5% (19) 21.5% (39) 17.9% (40) 29.8% (54) 23.2% (52) 18.8% (34) 12.1% (27) 8.8% (16) 9.4% (21) 35.9% (65) 24.1% (54) 19.9% (36) 19.6% (44) 29.3% (53) 20.1% (45) 11.0% (20) 16.5% (37) 17.7% (32) 10.3% (23) 13.8% (25) 8.5% (19) 17.7% (32) 13.8% (31) 24.9% (45) 17.9% (40) 15.5% (28) 8.5% (19) 6.6% (12) 7.1% (16) 31.5% (57) 21.0% (47) 16.0% (29) 21.4% (48) 26.0% (47) 21.4% (48) 13.3% (24) 15.2% (34) 14.4% (26) 10.3% (23) 12.2% (22) 7.1% (16) 18.2% (33) 13.4% (30) 21.5% (39) 17.9% (40) 14.4% (26) 8.9% (20) 6.6% (12) 6.7% (15) 30.9% (56) 19.6% (44) That pattern held constant with the exception of electronic monitoring and halfway house, in which case the women inmates were less willing to participate. That may have been a function of the sanction itself. For example, the description of halfway house noted that no visitors were allowed--a restriction that precluded female offenders from bringing their children to stay with them. In the case of electronic monitoring, women may have needed greater flexibility in their schedules to attend to the needs of children, and may have viewed the requirements of electronic monitoring as too restrictive considering the unpredictable nature of child care and supervision. It was clear that a significant proportion of inmates that might have been eligible for alternative sanctions wanted nothing to do with them. As noted, Tables 2 and 3 examined only inmates who refused to participate in the specified sanctions. That raised the obvious question of what it was about alternative sanctions that might have attracted and repelled inmates from participating in them. This issue generated significant debate and commentary from inmates in both the focus group and the pre-test and led us to include sections in the final survey that addressed that point. Accordingly, the reasons for and against participation presented in Tables 4 and 5 include many reasons that were suggested by inmates themselves. TABLE 4 Reasons That Might Cause an Inmate to Participate in an Alternative Sanction. "We Want to Know How Important You Think These Reasons Are for Participating in an Alternative Sanction. For Each Reason on the Left, Circle the Number That Tells How Important You Think That Reason Is for Choosing the Alternative Sanction." (N=415) 1. Very Important Reason 2. Pretty Important Reason 3. Somewhat Important Reason 4. Not at all Important Reason 1 2 3 4 Offender has a job outside prison. 76.0% 12.8% 5.8% 5.3% Offender has wife/husband outside prison. 61.3% 15.3% 10.9% 12.4% Offender has children outside prison. 83.9% 5.4% 5.6% 5.1% Offender is being victimized by other inmates and is doing "hard time." 30.2% 19.8% 26.5% 23.5% Offender is serving his/her first term in prison. 56.5% 21.1% 14.0% 8.4% Correctional institution in which the offender is serving time is very strict on inmates 24.9% 23.4% 25.4% 26.3% Alternatives offer a better lifestyle than prison. 58.3% 17.6% 12.9% 11.2% Alternatives allow the inmate to live outside prison. 71.2% 14.5% 7.6% 6.7% Alternatives have a good reputation among inmates. 41.5% 23.2% 14.8% 20.5% Alternatives successfully rehabilitate the offender. 56.7% 19.5% 13.3% 10.6% Offender is a woman. 30.9% 12.2% 18.5% 38.4% Alternatives are easier to complete than a prison term. 40.4% 22.1% 18.1% 19.4% Alternatives help you get out of prison sooner. 63.4% 15.6% 11.0% 10.0% It is clear from Table 4 that the most important reasons inmates cited for participating in alternatives involve obligations or opportunities that existed outside prison. Eighty-three point nine percent of inmates said that having children outside prison was a very important reason for participating in alternatives, and 61.3 percent cited having a spouse outside prison as very important. Seventy-six percent said that having a job waiting for them outside prison was a very important reason for enrolling in alternatives. Closely associated with those were "Alternatives allow the inmate to live outside prison" (a very important reason for 71.2 percent of inmates), and "Alternatives help you get out of prison sooner" (very important for 63.4 percent of inmates). It seemed that institutional characteristics played only a minor role in convincing inmates to enroll in alternatives. The least important reason for participating in alternatives involved "correctional institution in which the offender is serving time is very strict on inmates," with over 26 percent having said this was not at all important. Likewise, the reason that "offender is being victimized by other inmates and is doing `hard time'" was very important for only 30.2 percent of inmates and not at all important for 23.5 percent of inmates. However, it did appear that alternatives were more attractive for offenders serving their first prison term, with 56.5 percent of inmates having said that was a very important reason for participation. Apparently, after a certain period of adaptation and adjustment, inmates were likely to have become more amenable to serving prison, and less willing to gamble on alternatives. While Table 4 displays reasons why inmates might have participated in alternative sanctions, Table 5 provides possible reasons why inmates would have avoided alternative sanctions. In order of importance, the three most important reasons why inmates would have avoided alternatives were: 1) "If you fail to complete the alternative sanction, you end up back in prison"; 2) "Parole and program officers are too hard on the program participants, they try to catch them and send them back to prison"; and 3) "Inmates are abused by parole and probation officers who oversee the programs." TABLE 5 Reasons That Might Cause an Inmate to Avoid an Alternative Sanction. "We Want to Know How Important You Think These Reasons Are for Avoiding an Alternative Sanction like Those Presented on the Survey. For Each Reason on the Left, Circle the Number That Tells How Important You Think That Reason Is for Avoiding the Alternative Sanction." (N=415) 1. Very Important Reason 2. Pretty Important Reason 3. Somewhat Important Reason 4. Not at all Important Reason 1 2 3 4 Programs like those in this survey are too hard to complete. 24.4% 21.0% 24.0% 30.6% Program rules are too hard to follow. 23.8% 24.5% 22.3% 29.4% Parole and program officers are too hard on the program participants, they try to catch them and send them back to prison. 46.8% 15.8% 17.3% 20.1% Serving time in prison is easier than the alternatives offered by the DOC. 32.6% 19.8% 20.0% 27.7% If you fail to complete the alternative sanction, you end up back in prison. 57.7% 15.6% 13.9% 12.9% In general, living in prison is easier than living outside prison. 22.9% 13.7% 14.7% 48.8% Inmates are abused by parole and probation officers who oversee the programs. 40.5% 18.5% 16.3% 24.7% Serving time in prison is less hassle because the programs have too many responsibilities. 26.1% 20.2% 19.5% 34.2% Thus, the uncertainty of completing the alternative, coupled with the manner in which the alternatives were administered by parole and program officers, served to discourage many inmates from participation. The common sentiment among inmates was that they would rather have served out their term and be released with no strings attached, than invest significant time in an alternative sanction involving abusive program administrators and a strong likelihood of failure and re-imprisonment. For many inmates, a known amount of imprisonment-- particularly a brief prison term--was the lesser of two evils compared to the uncertainty of completing an alternative sanction. It was the likelihood of failure and possible mistreatment rather than any intrinsic quality of the alternatives that seemed critical. It seemed that for inmates with more experience in the system imprisonment became familiar, while the outcome of participating in alternatives became more uncertain and less attractive. Inmates in Spelman's (1995) study of alternative sanctions acknowledged that phenomena in the following quotes: 1) "Probation [ISP] has too many conditions. If you can't meet them, you end up in jail anyway. I'd rather just do the time and pay off my debt to society that way." 2) "On probation, you're on a short leash. If you cross over the line, they give you more time." 3) "The longer it lasts, the more chances you have to mess up. If you break [probation conditions], you'll do longer than a year in jail." (Spelman, 1995, p. 126). In fact, few inmates viewed the formal rules and responsibilities of the alternatives as a serious obstacle. Note that the reasons of "Programs like those in this survey are too hard to complete," "Program rules are too hard to follow," and "Serving time in prison is less hassle because the programs have too many responsibilities" were among the least important reasons for avoiding alternative sanctions. It seemed likely that inmates with significant experience serving time in prison would view alternative sanctions less favorably. Gender Differences in Punishment Equivalencies To this date, no previous studies had examined gender differences in the perception of sanction severity. Our sample included 425 female inmates, and we received 224 completed surveys from women respondents. As noted in Table 3, women seemed more amenable to alternative sanctions than did men--that is, a larger proportion of women said they were willing to participate in most of the ten alternatives examined in the study. However, that information was not sufficient to determine if women ranked sanctions the same as men with respect to punitiveness. Findings presented in Table 6 allowed such a determination. Table 6 presents gender differences in so-called "punishment equivalencies" that can be roughly translated into a ranking of sanction severity by gender. The pattern of male/female difference was very similar to that displayed in Table 3. For every alternative sanction except halfway house, women were willing to endure more of the alternative sanction than were men to avoid a specific length of actual imprisonment. To avoid four months imprisonment, women would have done an average .56 months more county jail than men. The difference was small with regard to boot camp (.14 months), but substantial for electronic monitoring where women would have done an average 1.11 months more than men. It was only in the case of halfway house that women would have done less of the alternative than men. Again, this was likely a function of the description of the sanction, which specified "no visitors" and precluded the possibility of having children in the house. That restriction caused a larger percent of women compared to men to refuse to participate (see Table 3), and apparently was responsible for women ranking the halfway house sanction more punitively than did men. Mothers wanted direct and prolonged contact with their children, which would have been impossible under the rules of the halfway house sanction. TABLE 6 Average/Median Amounts of Alternative Sanction Inmates Would Do to Avoid 4/8/12 Months of Medium Security Imprisonment--comparison of Males and Females. Alternative Sanction Unit of Analysis in Parentheses. (Inmates Who Refuse to Participate Are Deleted.) MONTHS OF ACTUAL MEDIUM SECURITY IMPRISONMENT 4 Months 8 Months 12 Months ALTERNATIVE SANCTION County Jail (Months) Male: Female: Boot Camp (Months) Male: Female: Electronic Monitoring (Months) Male: Female: Regular Probation (Years) Male: Female: Community Service (Hours) Male: Female: Day Reporting (Months) Male: Female: ISP (Months) Male: Female: Inter. Incarceration (Days) Male: Female: Halfway House (Months) Male: Female: Day Fine (Days) Male: Female: 2.68/2 3.24/2 2.65/2 2.79/2 5.29/4 6.40/4 2.74/1 2.93/2 554/250 646/250 4.44/4 4.71/4 5.71/5 5.90/6 82/60 88/60 5.00/4 4.91/4 82/60 83/60 3.67/3.5 4.27/4 3.45/3 3.92/4 7.75/8 8.40/8 3.17/2 3.67/2 772/500 904/640 6.35/8 6.56/8 8.44/8 8.41/8 122/90 126/120 7.28/8 6.99/8 114/90 112/90 4.74/4 5.50/6 4.39/4 4.99/4 10.03/10 10.95/10 3.59/3 4.68/3 1039/750 1286/1000 7.93/8 8.30/8 10.73/10 11.45/11 151/120 161/135 9.23/12 8.55/10 137/120 141/120 Regarding the crude ranking of alternatives compared to prison, men seemed to have perceived boot camp as the most punitive, while women seemed to have perceived day fine as most punitive. The day fine sanction for women involved maintaining a job in addition to raising a family (most likely as a single mother), while turning over all non-essential income to the court for a specified number of days. Similar to other alternatives, failure implied return to the correctional facility. That scenario was clearly very unpleasant for female inmates who ranked it as the most punitive of all alternatives. However, a close second on the women's ranking of punitiveness was boot camp, and the rankings of the rest of the sanctions as well as prison were very comparable to the rankings of the male inmates. In the case of four months imprisonment, both men and women ranked intermittent incarceration as the third most punitive sanction, and electronic monitoring as the ninth most punitive. Across the three durations of imprisonment, gender differences remained surprisingly minimal, and their rankings of relative punitiveness were remarkably similar. Among the 11 total sanctions (including imprisonment), men and women never ranked imprisonment higher than 5th in severity when compared to all three durations of imprisonment (four, eight, and 12 months). In fact, the rough "equivalencies" generated by Table 6 indicated that aside from regular probation, 12 months actual imprisonment was perceived as less punitive than any alternative sanction, and that was common to both men and women. In sum, findings presented in Tables 3 and 6 suggested that not only were women more amenable to serving alternatives like those examined here, they were willing to have served longer durations of alternatives than were men to avoid traditional incarceration. Punitiveness of Alternative Sanctions Compared to Imprisonment To this point, we have examined inmates' willingness to participate in alternatives, reasons why inmates would either choose to participate or avoid such sanctions, and some gender differences in the perception of sanction severity. We now turn to the relative punitiveness of alternative sanctions compared to fixed durations of imprisonment among inmates who indicated they had direct, personal experience with the sanction in question. We feel those were the inmates most knowledgeable about them, and it was their opinions that seemed most important. Table 7 shows the average and median amount of the alternative sanction inmates would have done to avoid four, then eight, then 12 months medium security imprisonment. Again, only inmates with personal experience of that sanction were included-- inmates who refused to participate were excluded from Table 7. The number of inmates who said they had personal experience with a particular sanction is listed below each sanction. TABLE 7 Average/median Amount of Alternative Sanction Inmates Would Do to Avoid 4/8/12 Months of Medium Security Imprisonment. Only Inmates with past Experience Service Each Sanction Are Included. Inmates Refusing to Participate Are Excluded. Alternative Sanction Unit of Analysis in Parentheses. MONTHS OF ACTUAL MEDIUM SECURITY IMPRISONMENT 4 Months 8 Months 12 Months ALTERNATIVE SANCTION County Jail (Months) N of Cases Boot Camp (Months) N of Cases Electronic Monitoring (Months) N of Cases Regular Probation (Years) N of Cases Community Service (Hours) N of Cases Day Reporting (Months) N of Cases ISP (Months) N of Cases Inter. Incarceration (Days) N of Cases Halfway House (Months) N of Cases Day Fine (Days) N of Cases 2.87/2 (239) 2.53/2 (111) 4.64/4 (64) 2.63/1 (216) 528/250 (176) 3.71/4 (24) 5.37/4 (41) 83/60 (31) 4.82/4 (108) 127/90 (25) 3.89/4 (274) 3.65/4 (118) 7.21/6 (70) 3.32/2 (238) 772/500 (188) 5.68/5 (25) 7.28/6 (47) 121/90 (32) 6.91/7 (113) 151/120 (25) 5.02/4 (281) 4.95/4 (117) 9.75/8 (69) 4.18/3 (245) 1160/750 (191) 6.72/6 (25) 9.18/6 (49) 145/120 (33) 8.51/10 (115) 171/150 (26) In Table 7, the numbers represent the unit of analysis listed after each sanction. County jail, boot camp, electronic monitoring, day reporting, ISP, and halfway house were measured in terms of months, intermittent incarceration and day fine were measured in terms of days, and community service and regular probation were measured in terms of hours and years, respectively. The data in Table 7 show that inmates who had experienced county jail would have done an average of 2.87 months of county jail to avoid having served four months of actual medium security imprisonment (N of Cases=239), an average of 3.89 months to have avoided eight months imprisonment (N=274), and 5.02 months to have avoided 12 months imprisonment (N=281). Given those "equivalencies," one may conclude that inmates who experienced both sanctions rate county jail as significantly more punitive than prison. While that may seem strange to those not familiar with serving time, it has been noted that offenders would routinely rather do a longer prison term than a shorter jail sentence (Fleisher, 1995). Fleisher cited an offender who said he would rather have done three or four years at the state penitentiary before one year in the county jail because, "It would be too hard to have a good time up in that ol' jail. Now, in prison, that's different." Fleisher went on to note, "Prison isn't a risk that worries street hustlers. Things such as limited freedom, loss of privacy, violence, and variant sexual activity, which might frighten lawful citizens, doesn't frighten them" (p. 164). Similar to county jail, 111 inmates who had experienced boot camp would have done a maximum of 2.53 months of boot camp to have avoided serving four months of actual medium security imprisonment, a maximum of 3.65 months of boot camp to have avoided eight months imprisonment (N=118), and a maximum of 4.95 months to have avoided 12 months imprisonment (N=117). The data revealed that inmates viewed boot camp as significantly more punitive than medium security imprisonment. On the other hand, the 108 inmates who had experienced halfway house would have done 4.82 months of halfway house to have avoided four months imprisonment-- suggesting that four months of imprisonment was viewed as more onerous than four months of halfway house. However, that ratio did not hold when one moved to eight months (N=113) and then 12 months actual imprisonment (N=115), with tradeoffs of 6.91 and 8.51 months halfway house respectively. For most alternative sanctions, it appeared that the additional amount of time inmates were willing to invest in the alternative declined as the actual prison stay increased from four to eight to 12 months imprisonment. There was clearly a law of diminishing returns that could be applied to this phenomena. Inmates were not willing to have done three times as much of the alternative to avoid 12 months imprisonment as they would have done to avoid just four months imprisonment. Though the duration of imprisonment was multiplied by three, the amount of alternatives inmates were willing to serve rarely exceeded twice the amount they would have done to avoid just four months imprisonment. Inmates who had experienced regular probation would have done an average of 2.63 years of probation to have avoided four months imprisonment (N=216), 3.32 years of probation to have avoided eight months imprisonment (N=238), and 4.18 years of probation to avoid 12 months imprisonment (N=245). Clearly, regular probation was viewed as far less punitive than imprisonment and was the least punitive of all the alternative sanctions. That finding seemed to support the claim that traditional probation represented the low end on the continuum of severity/onerousness of sanctions. However, the claim that traditional imprisonment represented the high end of the severity continuum was challenged when examining the data presented in Table 7. In fact, an informal ranking of punitiveness based on Table 7 would place imprisonment well down the list compared to other sanctions. Based on the average amount of the alternatives inmates were willing to have done to avoid imprisonment, a comparison of four months imprisonment with the ten alternatives identified imprisonment as the sixth most punitive behind boot camp, intermittent incarceration, county jail, community service, and day reporting, respectively. It followed that four months of day fine, electronic monitoring, halfway house, and regular probation were all viewed as less punitive than four months medium security imprisonment. Similar results derived from ranking the alternatives with eight and 12 months imprisonment, except that the law of diminishing returns moved actual imprisonment even farther down the continuum of severity. In the comparison of alternatives to eight months imprisonment, the sentence of eight months actual imprisonment ranked as the tenth most punitive sanction out of 11, with regular probation bringing up the rear in terms of punitiveness. An identical ranking resulted when comparing the alternatives to 12 months imprisonment. Again, when looking at the third column of numbers in Table 7, the only alternative inmates would have endured more than 12 months of was regular probation. Put another way, when comparing 10 alternative sanctions with four, eight, and 12 months actual imprisonment, traditional incarceration never ranked higher than sixth on the continuum of sanction severity. Based on information presented in Table 7, inmates with direct experience of both sanctions and imprisonment rated five alternative sanctions (boot camp, intermittent incarceration, county jail, community service, and day reporting) as more punitive than imprisonment. Implications for Research on Alternative Sanctions Research addressing issues associated with the severity of alternative sanctions has not developed at the speed at which interest in the matter demands. As noted in the introduction, the majority of directors of local and state criminal justice agencies identify alternative sanctions as the number one priority for research and evaluation (NIJ, 1995). But, to this date only five or six studies of inmate rankings of sanction severity exist, and some were plagued by potentially damaging methodological flaws. First, except for three recent studies (Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b; Spelman, 1995) research on offender perceptions of severity have not included the newer alternative sanctions. Second, some studies have used samples of the entire inmate population, including violent and habitual offenders, upon which to base their analysis and conclusions (Spelman, 1995). Since only nonviolent and nonhabitual offenders were eligible for participation in alternative and community-based sanctions, such mis-selection of subjects would seem inappropriate for the question. Third, often researchers were reaching conclusions based on only a small sample of offenders. Petersilia and Deschenes (1994a; 1994b), for example, based their entire analysis on just 48 inmate respondents. While this might have been sufficient for a pilot study, analysis of inmate subgroups rapidly exhausted the sample and precluded the researcher from meaningful group comparisons. Fourth, while all inmates had personal experience with imprisonment, previous studies often failed to control for personal experience in serving alternative sanctions (Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b). To arrive at a valid offender ranking of alternatives compared to imprisonment it would seem necessary to have surveyed inmates who had personal experience serving both traditional prison sentences and the alternatives in question. Only then might one have had faith in the comparison of alternatives with prison. While it is true that the particulars of alternative sanctions became well known to inmates who had not experienced them, such hearsay and second-hand information was possibly less accurate than information from offenders with first-hand knowledge and experience. Fifth, no previous research had examined gender differences in ranking the relative punitiveness of sanctions. Our work represented the first real look at gender differences in how inmates ranked the severity of alternatives compared to prison. With the rapid rise in female inmate populations and the fact that Oklahoma boasted the nation's highest rate of female incarceration, examination of female perceptions of sanction severity seemed warranted. Finally, previous work failed to acknowledge or investigate why a large proportion of inmates eligible for alternatives avoided them at all costs. While most previous work had been purely descriptive, our findings addressed the issue of why some alternatives were viewed as more punitive than prison. Interestingly, reasons for having avoided or participated in such sanctions had little to do with the specifics of the program or the institution in which inmates were serving time (i.e., program rules too strict, prison too harsh on inmates), but had much to do with the manner in which such programs were administered, specifically, 1) the conduct and personalities of parole and probation officers and program administrators and 2) the high failure and re-incarceration rates associated with many alternative sanctions. CONCLUSIONS Analysis of 415 inmate surveys (men and women) raised serious doubts about the validity of a continuum of sanctions bounded by regular probation at one extreme and traditional incarceration at the other. While legislators and criminal justice policy-makers might prefer such an arrangement and have operated under that assumption, the reality appeared more complex. Inmates with personal experience of both imprisonment and alternatives identified at least five alternatives that were individually more punitive than imprisonment. It was logical that a combination of these sanctions (i.e., electronic monitoring combined with community service, for example) would have been viewed by offenders as significantly more onerous than simple incarceration. Depending on the specific alternative, up to one-third of inmates refused to participate in the alternative even if it meant a shorter duration of imprisonment. Reservations about participating in alternatives seemed to have focused on two related issues: 1) the manner in which alternatives were administered--particularly concerns about abusive or antagonistic personnel who ran the programs and 2) the likelihood of program failure and return to prison after having invested time and effort in the alternative. Those concerns were apparently significant enough to have generated considerable rejection of alternatives among inmates who would rather have served out their time and have been released with no strings attached. Similar to men, female offenders rated traditional imprisonment as less punitive than several alternative sanctions. However, female inmates were more willing to have participated in alternative sanctions than were men and were willing to have served longer durations of alternative sentences than men in order to avoid traditional incarceration. That might have been due to several factors. It was likely that women who had small children might have endured longer sentences of community-based sanctions in order to maintain direct contact with their dependents. As noted in Table 1, nearly 80 percent of female respondents had at least one child. It may also have been true that women in general perceived prison as more punitive than men--regardless of parental status, and might have been more likely to participate in alternatives and endure longer sentences of alternatives in order to avoid traditional imprisonment. While those reasons were speculative, they seemed logical in light of the data. There is a pressing need for more work in the area of alternative sanctions, particularly work towards developing a meaningful continuum of sanction severity and punishment equivalencies that are reliable. Recent work has demonstrated that the conventional wisdom of placing regular probation at the low end of a continuum of sanction severity might have been valid, but the same work has shown there were sanctions that offenders perceived as more severe than traditional incarceration (Crouch, 1993; Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b; Spelman, 1995). These researchers also noted that different types of offenders rated sanctions differently, and findings presented here demonstrate real gender differences in the rating of sanction severity. In 1990, Morris and Tonry urged states to work toward new sentencing guidelines that would develop punishment equivalencies between traditional incarceration and a range of community-based sanctions that would allow judges to choose among sentences of equivalent punitiveness to suit the individual offender's risk level and personal characteristics. While work presented here is not sufficient to satisfy this ultimate goal, it provides some incremental increase in knowledge that points to future research considerations while contributing to the small body of work on inmates' perceptions of the severity of sanctions. PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS Boot camp: Boot camp is for a shorter time than you would have been sent to prison. But boot camp can be more unpleasant in many ways than living in prison. Boot camp is like basic training for the army. You live with about a hundred other people in one big room. There is regular drill instruction like in the military and you are pushed physically and psychologically to perform beyond your capabilities. You experience sleep deprivation. You are required to become physically active and fit. You are constantly supervised by drill instructors who watch you closely. You are generally required to participate in a education program. Virtually all your time and activities are controlled. You are subject to random urinalysis and can be sent back to prison if you fail to obey the rules. Electronic monitoring: On electronic monitoring, you live at home, but your freedom is greatly reduced. You wear an electronic device on your ankle. If you get more than 200 feet from your telephone, this device sends an alarm to a computer. Then an officer who is supervising you knows that you are not where you are supposed to be. On electronic monitoring you are being followed by the computer 24 hours a day. There are strict curfews and rules about when you must stay near your phone. If you break these rules, you can be sent to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis. Regular probation: On probation, you do not spend time in prison, but the amount of time on probation usually lasts much longer than whatever prison sentence you might have gotten. You must see your probation officer at least once a month, but it can be every week if ordered. You must get permission from the probation office to travel or to move. Your probation officer can require that you stay away from certain people. Your home or car can be searched at any time without a search warrant. If you do not follow the rules you can be sent to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis. Any violation can result in you going to prison. Community service: When you are sentenced to community service, you live at home and can have a job. However, you must work some time without pay to make up for the crime for which you were convicted. You work for a government agency or some local non-profit organization, and you do not have any choice about where or what the job is. The judge decides the number of days and hours you must work. If you fail to work the required days and hours, you can be sent back to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis testing. Day reporting: If you are sentenced to day reporting, you can stay home at night, but you must check in at a parole office every day. During the day you must have a job or you must go to some center in the community and be involved in activities all day. These activities might include working for no pay in the community, looking for a job, counseling, job training, and education programs. At the end of the day you get to go home. You may be required to work, and if you do you must check in every day during nonwork hours. Failure to abide by the rules can result in you going back to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis testing. Intensive supervision probation (ISP): Intensive supervision is much stricter than regular probation. You do not go to prison and can live at home. However, the probation officer is checking up on you--sometimes everyday--and you are required to be in some kind of treatment program to improve yourself. All parts of your life, including what you do at home and at work are watched. Probation officers can come to your workplace or your home to check on you at any time of the day or night. Sometimes you are required to report to the probation officer everyday on your own time. Failure to report to the officer or other violations can result in you going back to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis testing. Intermittent incarceration: With this punishment, you must spend weekends or evenings in the county jail, which typically is much more unpleasant than prison. But, since you are not in prison, you can have a job and be involved with your family and community when you are not spending your time in jail. However, failure to report to jail, or failure to pass a random urinalysis test could result in you returning to prison. Halfway house: A halfway house is a place where several people convicted of crimes live. There is no strict security as there is in prison, but there are firm rules that you must follow. Halfway houses have rehabilitative programs, and if your behavior improves you are treated better and given more freedom. Break the rules and you can be placed back in prison. As always, you are subject to random urinalysis and searches, and constant observation. Day fine: A day fine is based on the amount of money you make each day. You are allowed to subtract some money for your rent, transportation, food, utilities, etc., but whatever is left over you have to pay as a day fine. For example, if you had $20 left each day after expenses, your day fine would be $20 for every day the judge says you have to pay. If the judge gives you a day fine of 90 days, and your day fine rate is $20, you would have to pay a total of $1800. Failure to pay your fines can result in you being sent back to prison. Biography Peter B. Wood, Ph.D., is assistant professor of sociology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, and is a member of the Oklahoma Criminal Justice Research Consortium Executive Committee. Harold G. Grasmick, Ph.D., is professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. He is author of numerous books and articles on crime and neighborhoods. REFERENCES Apospori, E., & Alpert, G. (1993). 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