Intermediate Sanctions in Sentencing Guidelines

Every American state has created new intermediate sanctions in recent years and nearly half have, have had, or are considering having sentencing guidelines. Guidelines can reduce sentencing disparities, including race, gender, and geographical disparities; effect changes in statewide sentencing patterns; and coordinate sentencing policies and corrections resources. Well-managed intermediate sanctions can scale punishment severity to crime seriousness and save money. Some research suggests positive effects on offenders' treatment participation. These aims, however, are often frustrated by judges' decisions to use intermediate sanctions for offenders different from those for whom programs are designed. As a result, some states are now incorporating intermediate sanctions into guidelines. A number of concepts-including "purposes at sentencing" and "parsimony"-and a number of mechanisms-zones of discretion, categorical exceptions, and dispositional presumptions-show promise as means to that end. New intermediate sanctions, punishments less burdensome and intrusive than imprisonment but more so than standard probation, have been developed in every state since 1980, and nearly half the states have, have had, or are developing sentencing guidelines. In comparison with a quarter century ago, both developments are striking; few states then had programs that would today be considered intermediate sanctions, and not one had sentencing guidelines. From a late-1990s perspective, neither intermediate sanctions nor guidelines are novel. What is novel, however, is that policy makers in many American jurisdictions Michael Tonry is Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Minnesota Law School. © 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0192-3234/98/0023-0004502.00