Imprisonment Inertia and Public Attitudes Toward "Truth in Sentencing"

Despite more than a decade of effort by policymakers across the US, America's imprisonment rate seems stuck at historically high levels. The 2001 recession, in particular, served as a wakeup call for many policymakers, convincing them that imprisonment rates had reached unsustainable levels. In...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brigham Young University law review 2015-03, Vol.2015 (2), p.257
Main Authors: O'Hear, Michael, Wheelock, Darren
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Criminal sentences
Decriminalization
Imprisonment
Law
Policy making
Prison overcrowding
Prisoners
Prisons
Public opinion
Public opinion surveys
Reforms
State budgets
Studies
Sustainability management
Trends
Violent crime
Voters
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Summary:Despite more than a decade of effort by policymakers across the US, America's imprisonment rate seems stuck at historically high levels. The 2001 recession, in particular, served as a wakeup call for many policymakers, convincing them that imprisonment rates had reached unsustainable levels. In truth, despite budgetary pressures and relatively low crime rates, policymakers in many states have been quite cautious in the design and administration of new programs intended to move prisoners out of confinement more quickly. More specifically, public opinion embraces two policy preferences that are in tension with one another. On the one hand, the authors find strong support for the ideal of "truth in sentencing," or TIS -- that is, the ideal that an offender must serve the full term of imprisonment imposed at sentencing. On the other hand, they also find strong support for moving prisoners into less costly forms of punishment when it is safe to do so.
ISSN:0360-151X
2162-8572