This book is organized into five sections. The first, by the editors, consists of a general review of sentencing reform over the last
three decades in the United States and in certain European countries.
The second section is about sentencing reform in the United States. This part of the book contains developmental histories,
descriptions and analyses of sentencing guidelines in thirteen states. The section includes an overview of national developments in
sentencing reform by Richard S. Frase. It consists of information about types of guidelines in selected states (including an
excellent table that sums up sentencing guideline systems in 22 states); highlights the American Bar Association's new sentencing
standards; and presents a comparison of some principle differences between the A.B.A. standards and federal guidelines.
The remainder of this section contains a series of papers by various experts in the field through which notable sentencing reforms
activities in several states are described and analyzed in Washington, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Delaware,
Colorado, Utah, Kansas, Ohio, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
The third section of the book is about sentencing reform activities outside the United States. The focus is on Europe. This section
begins with an introductory statement by the editors which makes the point that although some American innovations in sentencing
reform have been implemented by European countries, we have adopted very few sentencing reform ideas from Europe.
The rest of the third section contains a description of prison population trends in Western Europe, and the implication of these
trends; namely, prison overcrowding. This is followed by several in-depth descriptions and analyses of important examples of
sentencing reform in certain European countries, including: England (and some English-speaking countries such as Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, and South Africa), Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.
The fourth section deals with the issue of race and sentencing. The editors point out that although American sentencing reforms
were aimed at diminishing racial discrimination in sentencing, the irony of these reforms is that they have instead exacerbated
distinctions by race, particularly with respect to African American males. This is largely attributable to the vectoring of "war on
drugs" policies upon disadvantaged neighborhoods; differential sentencing options for cocaine versus "crack" offenders; and, the
tendency toward harsher punishment, mandatory penalties, and inflexible sentencing options for judges, all of which decrease
possibilities for sentence mitigation.
The rest of this section contains a number of articles about the prevalence of ethnic minority persons (especially African
American males) in the criminal justice system. The authors document the increasing racial disparities in prisons and jails and in
the juvenile justice system.
The final section of the book explores the issue of public opinion and sentencing. The editors state that historically, whether crime
rates rose or fell, rates of imprisonment continued to increase progressively. This phenomenon is usually explained by asserting
that as the attitude of the public toward crime has become tougher, government officials have responded by escalating the severity
of punishments and by enacting increasingly harsher policies. They (editors) frame the issue this way: "The key question is
whether public attitudes became harsher, and public officials followed, or whether conservative politicians cynically used crime as
an issue to frighten Americans and then offered to respond to those fears by enacting and carrying out harsh politics, in effect
heightening fears and then promising to assuage them" (249).
The answer to this "key question" may be found in the remainder of the final section, which is given-over to a number of articles
that summarize national and international public attitudes about punishment. The content of these articles demonstrates that public
attitudes favor alternatives to prison for a variety of nonviolent crimes. These articles, especially the one by Julian V. Roberts,
summarize a number of studies which suggest that: the public is more supportive of community-based corrections than are the
courts; politicians misread public attitudes about alternatives to incarceration; there is public support for rehabilitation efforts; public
education about alternatives to imprisonment is very much needed; and, the media tends to inflame public opinion about punishment
because it emphasizes the reporting of crimes of violence.
Some material of the type found in this reader can be located at scattered sources, for example, at the Internet site of the
International Centre for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Policy. Nevertheless, this is an important book for persons who are
interested in the field of community corrections. It contains, in one place, current information from a variety of empirical and
descriptive studies about sentencing reform efforts, including sentencing guidelines, alternatives to incarceration, the impact of
sentencing reform efforts upon ethnic minority persons, and the myth about public opinions regarding sentencing and the harshness
of sentencing policies.
The articles in this reader first appeared in a journal, OVERCROWDED TIMES, which the first author of this book, Michael
Tonry, edits. Only 62 libraries hold that journal nationally; therefore, unless one has a personal subscription, availability of current
material on this topic is somewhat difficult to obtain. The fact that this material is in one place is a plus. However, the downside is
that policy changes in sentencing reform are ongoing at the local, state and national levels. Therefore, the material in this book can
quickly become dated.
Michael Tonry and Kathleen Hatlestad, along with their contributors, make a good case for the use of alternatives to incarceration,
especially a continuum of intermediate sanctions. However, aside from the issue of research methodology, a number of persistent
problems remain unresolved concerning the effectiveness of these types of sanctions. The list includes: the methods and processes
for selecting offender participants (the reliability of risk assessment as a product of current methods of classification, treatment
planing and referral); which agency should administer the services (the rivalry among probation, parole, jails and prisons
concerning jurisdiction); and, the common problem that affects most criminal justice innovations: net-widening. In addition, despite
the popular favor of some of these sanctions, we are not sure that they really work in terms of the ultimate outcome measure:
reduction of recidivism. For example, many studies contain conflicting data regarding the effectiveness of electronic monitoring,
boot camps, intensive supervision, community service, restitution programs, and so forth.
Clearly, before we continue to promote correctional policies that emphasize alternative sanctions in order to deal with prison
overcrowding and disparities in sentencing, we need to conduct more studies that focus on the rehabilitation effectiveness of these
sanctions with respect to recidivism. This is not just a call for more research. What we need are more micro-analytic studies in
order to evaluate the effectiveness of intermediate sanctions as types of differential rehabilitation interventions. To be able to do
this, we will, at a minimum, need to control for the characteristics of the offenders participating in the programs (treatment
amenability), the nature and types of rehabilitation services (correctional counseling/treatment techniques), and the training,
education and experience of the staff administering the programs and services (qualifications of the "therapists").
In summary, this book contains a great deal of important information about sentencing, corrections, and about national and
international efforts with respect to crime control. It is clearly written and well organized. It includes articles by leading and
authoritative researchers in the correctional field. Most importantly, the book makes a strong intellectual case for correctional
policies, which are empirically driven rather than driven by ideology and partisan politics, and for the wider use of alternatives to
incarceration, especially for non-violent criminals.
