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Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39 – 50 A comparison of punishment exchange rates between offenders under supervision and their supervising officers B Christopher M. Flory a, David C. May a,*, Kevin I. Minor a, Peter B. Wood b a b Department of Correctional and Juvenile Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, Stratton 105, 521 Lancaster Avenue, Richmond, KY 40475, United States Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Mississippi State University, P. O. Box C, Mississippi State, MS 39762, United States Abstract Previous research revealed gender and racial differences in offender preferences for prison compared to alternative sanctions, in the amount of an alternative sanction offenders would serve to avoid prison, and in the severity ranking of criminal sanctions. Nevertheless, opinions of officers who supervised those clients have all but been ignored. In this study, this literature was extended by comparing perceptions of Kentucky probation and parole officers regarding the amount of alternative sanctions that offenders would serve to avoid one year of imprisonment to perceptions of the offenders whom they supervised regarding the same topic. Based on analysis of data from an electronic survey of approximately 230 probation and parole officers and approximately 600 probationers and parolees, results suggested that there were significant differences in bexchange ratesQ of officers when compared to those of offenders. Justifications for these findings and their implications for correctional policy and practice are discussed. D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Intermediate sanctions have become an integral part of the U.S. criminal justice system. Intensive supervision probation, electronic monitoring, boot camps, day fines, and other sanctions designated as bintermediateQ have proliferated over the last thirty years. Given current rates of crime and prison crowding, such sentences can be expected to remain very popular in the foreseeable future. The intermediate sanctions movement is founded on the belief that courts have traditionally relied too much B An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meetings of the Southern Criminal Justice Association in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September 2004. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 859 622 6681; fax: +1 859 622 6650. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.C. May). 0047-2352/$ - see front matter D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.11.004 on prison and traditional probation sentences, overusing these two extremes and minimizing alternatives in dealing out punishments to convicted criminal offenders (Harris, Petersen, & Rapoza, 2001; Morris & Tonry, 1990). Though controversies remain, a wide body of literature evolved around the idea that a calibrated continuum of intermediate sanctions is potentially desirable and potentially more capable than the probation-prison dichotomy of meeting the needs of the offender, correctional system, and the community (e.g., McCarthy, 1987; Morris & Tonry, 1990; Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b; Smykla & Selke, 1995). Nevertheless, little empirical evidence exists to show how this continuum is perceived by either offenders serving community-based intermediate sanctions or their supervising officers. In this study, perceptions of these groups were compared to determine if there are significant differences in punishment exchange rates, a concept operationalized below. 40 C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 Three bodies of literature surround this topic, including literature on: (1) public perceptions of intermediate sanctions, (2) offender perceptions of intermediate sanctions, and (3) correctional official perceptions of intermediate sanctions. The latter two were compared in this study. While there was a growing literature on offender perceptions of alternative sanctions (see May, Wood, Mooney, & Minor, 2005, for an exhaustive review of this research), there was little research examining the perceptions of correctional officials. An examination of the correctional officers’ perceptions of alternative sanctions with the perceptions of offenders serving actual sanctions will provide a more complete understanding of the attitudes of various parties involved in the punishment process. This is essential for a better understanding of the effects of intermediate sanctions. Literature Public perceptions There was limited literature regarding public perceptions of alternative sanctions. Roberts and Stalans (1997) reviewed several studies and cited research contradicting the viewpoint that the public is excessively punitive. English, Crouch, and Pullen (1989) and Applegate, Cullen, and Fisher (2002) demonstrated that the public was more supportive than judges of utilizing community corrections alternatives for offenders who had not committed serious offenses and who had limited criminal histories. This finding was replicated by data from: responses to a national opinion survey (Haghighi & Lopez, 1998), Minnesota residents (Bae, 1991), Missouri residents (Fichter & Veneziano, 1988), and jurors (Diamond & Stalans, 1989). Roberts and Stalans also determined from public opinion surveys of Michigan residents that two out of three respondents believed that, for offenders with limited criminal histories and who had not committed serious offenses, community-based alternative sanctions should be used instead of prison. Furthermore, given the choice of probation, prison, fines, and fine plus probation for first time burglary offenders, Roberts and Doob (1989) reported that only about one out of three Canadian respondents chose prison over the other sentences. Additionally, half of those who chose prison stated that, even though they selected prison for the scenario at hand, they favored community restitution in all or most cases. Finally, Brown and Elrod (1995) found that, under certain conditions, New York residents supported the use of electronic monitoring as an alternative to incarceration. Numerous researchers had determined that the public might be less punitive than most policymakers believe. Research by John Doble Research Associates, Inc. (1995) also found a preference for the use of alternative sanctions over prison for nonviolent offenders in North Carolina. More than 80 percent of the respondents agreed that day reporting, house arrest, community service, boot camps, and halfway houses should be used instead of prison for those offenders not convicted of a violent offense. Furthermore, studies by both McCorkle (1993) and Cullen, Skovron, Scott, and Burton (1990) suggested that members of the public generally support rehabilitative programs for inmates that afford them better opportunities for success upon release from prison. Thus, the punitiveness of the public (as viewed through the eyes of policymakers) seems to be exaggerated. The research reviewed above revealed that, among members of the lay public, alternative sanctions were often preferred over prison. Nevertheless, none of the studies reviewed above dealt explicitly with exchange rates, or preferences in the amount of an alternative sanction that respondents would choose given a choice between that alternative and prison. Exchange rate comparisons had been limited to research with offenders. Offender perceptions of alternative sanctions Two approaches can be employed when ranking the severity of sanctions and establishing bexchange ratesQ between custodial and non-custodial sentences (Byrne, 1990). One approach is based on public perceptions of the criminal justice system. According to Morris and Tonry (1990), use of this approach functions primarily to distribute justice in a manner that satisfies the public and allows the public to view such rates as applying a rough equivalence in punishment for blike-situated offenders.Q The second approach attempts to establish exchange rates based on an offender’s perspective, with emphasis on how offenders perceive and/or experience a range of custodial and non-custodial sanctions. This approach is based on the theory that offenders’ perspectives are influenced by the length of custodial sentences, as well as by perceptions of the conditions accompanying non-custodial sentences and the usual sanctions imposed for failure to comply with these conditions (Byrne, 1990; Stylianou, 2003). The second approach was more appropriate for this study, as responses from a sample of offenders under community correction supervision and the officers responsible for their supervision were used to provide the data under examination here. C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 Over the past twenty years, evidence had accumulated that indicated offenders’ perceptions of punitiveness or severity of criminal sanctions were more complex than previously assumed (e.g., McClelland & Alpert, 1985; Petersilia, 1990; Spelman, 1995; Van Voorhis, Browning, Simon, & Gordon, 1997; Wood, May, & Grasmick, 2005). This growing body of evidence had implications for theoretical explanations of illegal conduct (e.g., deterrence, rational choice, and social learning perspectives) that operate from the explicit premise that people consider rewards and punishments as a prelude to criminal action. The main implication of this body of evidence is that researchers need to consider the issue of exactly how punitive (or rewarding) a given consequence is perceived to be by a given individual. The significance of this topic is not restricted to the realm of theory, as all efforts to control crime are grounded in theoretical presuppositions about why people break the law. Nevertheless, in contrast to Hawkins and Alpert’s (1989) notion of the relativity of perceptions of sanction severity, extant policies and practices assume an objectivity of punishment seriousness. Indeed, Morris and Tonry (1990) conceptualized the variety of correctional sanctions as forming an objective, calibrated continuum ranging from least (probation) to most (prison) severe, with such things as community service, electronic monitoring, and halfway houses filling the intermediate region. Previous research had also demonstrated that: (a) some offenders perceive that prison is a deterrent while others do not; and (b) some offenders prefer prison over intermediate sanctions. Van Voorhis et al. (1997) determined that young, non-White, unemployed inmates were significantly more likely than their fellow inmates to view prison as a deterrent and feel that they were b. . .getting something out of prison. . .Q (p. 161). As such, even among those incarcerated in the same setting, not all individuals experience the same bdegreeQ of punishment. Additionally, Crouch (1993) and Wood and May (2003) reported that Blacks were more likely than Whites to prefer prison over ostensibly more lenient alternative sanctions. Likewise, Wood et al. (2005) found that males were more likely than females to express preferences for prison over shock incarceration (boot camp). Wood and Grasmick (1999) also observed significant gender differences. Other studies had reported variations by age, marital status, and offense type (Crouch, 1993; Petersilia & Deschenes, 1994a, 1994b; Spelman, 1995). There was also evidence (Apospori & Alpert, 1993; Wood & 41 Grasmick, 1999) that having experienced a given sanction influences subsequent perceptions of the punitiveness of that sanction. Spelman (1995) found that previous incarcerations were associated with a preference for prison over alternatives; thus, as McClelland and Alpert (1985, p. 317) observed, it might be that arrestees bwith large numbers of previous convictions tend to see imprisonment as relatively trivial.Q While a growing body of research on offender perceptions currently existed, the literature contained a gap in relation to how offenders’ perceptions of intermediate sanctions compared with the perceptions of the officials who worked with the offender population. It is important that researchers examine this area because conflicting perceptions between these groups can have implications for the success of intermediate sanctions in controlling recidivism. Correctional official perceptions of intermediate sanctions Most of the research on the perceptions of correctional officials revolved around victimization risk and role conflict (Gordon, Moriarty, & Grant, 2003; Kifer, Hemmens, & Stohr, 2003). As such, little was known about the attitudes and beliefs of correctional practitioners regarding the severity of intermediate sanctions. Nevertheless, the literature did give some insight. Role orientation perceptions seemed to be the most relevant part of the existing literature for the topic of this study. The finding that probation and parole officers had conflicting views of their roles (e.g., as either law enforcement officers or social workers) might give some insight into how they viewed the sanction continuum. Numerous studies indicated that many officers used a combination of the two roles to perform their jobs (see Fulton, Stichman, Travis, & Latessa, 1997; and Studt, 1978, for examples). Hardyman (1988) found that some officers rotate between the two roles, depending on the perceived character and behavior of the offender. Consequently, the role adopted can influence not only the way a practitioner conducts his/her daily duties (Clear & O’Leary, 1983), but also her/his belief about the severity of the sanction being supervised. Clear and O’Leary suggested that the amount of supervision goals set by an officer were dependent on attitudes of authority and assistance held by the officer. In other words, officers with more control-oriented philosophies are more likely to enforce a higher number of conditions on a consistent basis. Clear and Latessa (1993), however, suggested that officer attitudes might be secondary to 42 C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 organizational philosophy when it comes to attitudes toward rehabilitation among supervised offenders. Goals of the correctional organization also play an important role in the perceptions of correctional officials toward intermediate sanctions. Vaughn (1993) found that directors of state correctional institutions felt that citizens view incapacitation as the main goal of correctional facilities and were disinclined toward rehabilitation, in relation to other goals. Furthermore, the state directors themselves perceived the main goal of their facilities to be deterrence, followed by rehabilitation, incapacitation, and finally retribution. Vaughn noted that the conflict between what directors think the public perceives as goals, and what the public actually perceives as goals, may be problematic for policy implementation. In a study of correctional facilities in Bermuda Burton, Ju, Dunaway, and Wolfe (1991) determined that offender rehabilitation was the most important goal among correctional officers. Among the officers surveyed, 78 percent of them believed that rehabilitation was just as important as punishing the offender, while 45 percent thought that rehabilitation was an effective means of reducing recidivism. As Burton et al. determined that 83 percent of the surveyed officers rated punishment as the worst way to reduce crime, Bermuda officers seemed to perceive punishment and rehabilitations as direct opposites. Beliefs like these would almost surely help condition the attitudes of correctional officials toward intermediate sanctions. While a number of studies had examined perceptions held by the public and by offenders, the research reviewed above revealed one glaring limitation: few (if any) studies addressed the topic of alternative sanctions using a sample of correctional practitioners. Therefore, in this study, offenders’ and officers’ perceptions of the amount of an alternative sanction convicted offenders would serve to avoid prison were compared; in other words, the results presented herein compared exchange rates between offenders under community supervision and the probation/parole officers who supervised them. Method Samples and procedure Data for this study were collected from two diverse groups: (1) a sample of offenders under community correction supervision (during the fall of 2003 from seven state probation and parole offices in Kentucky); and (2) a sample of probation and parole officers in the state of Kentucky (in the spring of 2004). An overview of that data collection effort is provided below. Offender sample The offender data from offenders under study here were collected from seven probation/parole offices in Kentucky that were selected using a purposive sampling method to yield large enough proportions of Black, female, and urban offenders to make meaningful comparisons between the groups. The final sample consisted of 612 respondents. This represented just over 2 (2.3) percent of the approximately 27,000 offenders on probation and parole in Kentucky at the end of 2003. Members of the research team collected data from offenders who reported to probation/parole offices to attend their scheduled (typically, monthly) meeting with the officers on the day of the arrival of the research team. Thus, the number of offenders available to provide data varied based on the assistance of the officers in sending their clients to complete the instrument. Respondents were provided a letter of consent that: (a) explained the purpose of the study; (b) informed the respondent that their participation was completely voluntary and that they were free to answer any, all, or none of the questions; (c) assured them of the confidential and anonymous nature of the study; and (d) asked for the respondent’s signature giving informed consent. The researcher then asked respondents whether they would prefer to complete the letter and survey on their own or have them read aloud. Approximately 10 percent of the respondents asked that the material be read. Less than one in five (19.0 percent) of the participants declined consent. Survey instrument The instrument used to collect the data was an eight-page questionnaire adapted from the one used in several other studies (May et al., 2005; Wood & Grasmick, 1999; Wood & May, 2003; Wood et al., 2005). After answering a series of demographic questions (presented below), the offenders were presented with descriptions of nine alternative sanctions, including county jail, boot camp, electronic monitoring, regular probation, community service, day reporting, intermittent incarceration, halfway house placement, and day fine (included in Appendix A). After reading (or being read) the description of the alternative, respondents were asked to consider twelve months of medium-security imprisonment and to indicate how C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 many months of the alternative they were willing to serve to avoid twelve months imprisonment. In some cases, the interviewer was asked to clarify the questions; interviewers did so following a protocol developed by the second author. In this manner, respondents registered their own perceptions of the severity of alternatives compared to a year in prison. This method provided respondents with a means of comparing alternatives to imprisonment and indirectly created a ranking of the severity of the sanctions. Officer sample In early January 2004, the authors contacted the Department of Corrections (DOC) and asked for permission to administer a questionnaire to officers that was identical to the one previously administered to offenders as discussed above. Modifications were made to the demographic portion of the questionnaire (e.g., asking how long officers had been employed in the DOC, asking how many offenders officers supervised) to make the instrument appropriate for officers. With DOC agreement, a modified version of the questionnaire used to obtain data from the offenders was developed to administer to the officers. The DOC contact suggested that the best way to collect data from the officers would be through use of an elecTable 1 Sample descriptive statistics Offenders Officers Male Female N = 588 (percent)* 467 (79.4) 119 (20.2) N = 208 (percent)* 125 (60.1) 82 (39.4) Ethnicity White Black 350 (59.5) 238 (40.5) 195 (93.8) 11 (5.3) Mean age 33.29 39.56 Currently on probation or parole Probation Parole 351 (59.7) 229 (38.9) – – 50 159 228 133 14 3 2 (1.0) 151 (72.6) 53 (25.5) Gender Highest level completed education Eighth grade or less Some high school High school graduate Some college College graduate Some graduate/professional studies (8.5) (27.0) (38.8) (22.6) (2.4) (0.5) * Percent may not equal 100 due to missing data. 43 tronic questionnaire. As such, at the end of January 2004, the authors created a web site where the officers could complete the questionnaire and then e-mailed the DOC contact with a link to the web site and an e-mail to forward to the officers describing the purpose of the research and asking the officers to participate. The contact then forwarded that e-mail to all the probation and parole officers who currently worked in the state. After two weeks, she sent a second e-mail (with text developed by the authors) to remind those who had not yet participated in the data collection of the survey. Finally, four weeks after the initial e-mail and two weeks after the second e-mail reminder, a third e-mail was sent to ask all who had not participated in the research to do so. The questionnaire was removed from the web site in mid-March 2004, approximately six weeks after the first e-mail was sent to all the officers. Of the 295 officers who supervised clients in the state of Kentucky in January 2004, 208 officers responded, for a participation rate of 70.5 percent. Officer demographics also appear in Table 1. Results Offender descriptive statistics For the offender sample, respondents provided background information on age, gender, race, education, and whether they were presently under probationary or parole supervision. With the exception of the variable measuring their supervision status, identical data were collected from the officers. The descriptive statistics for the offender and officer samples are presented in Table 1. The offender sample consisted of 588 respondents who were serving either probation or parole sentences. Four in five offenders (79.4 percent) were male. As previous research with offenders had demonstrated, Blacks were far more likely than Whites to prefer prison over alternative sanctions (see May et al., 2005, for review); as such, only Blacks and Whites were included in the offender sample. Three in five offenders (59.5 percent) were White. Three in five (59.7 percent) offenders in the sample were on probation. The education levels of the offender sample varied from less than an eighth grade education to some graduate or professional studies. Almost one in ten (8.5 percent) offenders had less than an eighth grade education and slightly over one in four (27.0 percent) had completed some high school. Only 2.4 percent had a college degree, while three offenders had some graduate or professional studies. The remaining offenders 44 C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 had either a high school diploma (38.8 percent) or some college (22.6 percent). Officer descriptive statistics Of the 208 officers who provided data for this study, three in five (60.1 percent) were male and almost all (93.8 percent) were White. The vast majority of the respondents (72.6 percent) were college graduates, while an additional 25.5 percent had taken some postgraduate classes. Two officers (1 percent) responded that they had taken some college classes; these officers were likely bgrandfatheredQ for the college education requirement that applies to officers in Kentucky. Comparison of exchange rates between offenders and officers No previous research had examined exchange rates among officers providing community supervision, thus, the primary purpose of this research effort was to determine whether officers differed from offenders in their perceptions of the amount of alternative sanctions offenders would take to avoid prison. Offenders were asked bWhat is the maximum number of months of [a particular alternative sanction] you would take to avoid serving twelve months actual time in prison?Q The officers were asked the same question, only with respect to their perceptions of how much time a bconvicted offenderQ would serve. The intermediate sanctions under study were boot camps, jail, electronic monitoring, probation, community service, day reporting, intermittent incarceration, halfway houses, and day fines. The means and standard deviations for each sample are presented in Table 2. Responses from both groups were combined into one data file and independent sample t-tests were then conducted to examine the mean differences between the two groups. The results from those analyses are presented in detail below. Of the nine sanctions under study, there were statistically significant differences between officer and offender exchange rates on six of the alternative sanctions. With the exception of community service (discussed in detail below), in sanctions where there were statistically significant differences between the samples, the mean exchange rate for offenders was significantly less than the mean exchange rate for the officer sample. For example, the exchange rate for regular probation that the officers felt offenders would serve to avoid twelve months prison was almost twice as high as what the offenders themselves stated they would actually serve (a mean of 44.23 months for officers and 23.56 months for offenders). While the disparity between the two samples was not as great for any of the other sanctions, the consistent pattern was that the exchange rate that the officers thought offenders would serve was almost twice as high as the mean exchange rate for the offenders. Thus, offenders had significantly lower exchange rates than officers for county jail (5.55 months versus 8.12 months), electronic monitoring (13.95 months versus 17.57 months), day reporting (17.01 months versus 22.62 months), and intermittent incarceration (14.60 months versus 16.88 months). Nevertheless, officers did have a sense that offenders did not view prison as the most stringent punishment; for both officers and offenders, jail and boot camp were viewed as the most stringent Table 2 Comparison of officer and offender exchange rates Sentence Boot camp County jail Electronic monitoring Regular probation Community servicea Day reporting Intermittent incarceration Halfway house Day fine Officers Offenders Mean S.D. % None Max. Mean S.D. % None Max. 6.05 8.12*** 17.57*** 44.23*** 8.76 22.62*** 16.88* 15.62 13.48 4.02 5.79 12.15 25.61 12.67 20.24 13.21 12.96 18.83 3.9 1.9 1.5 0.5 1.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 4.9 24 60 60 120 50.0 90 60 75 120 6.07 5.55 13.95 23.56 22.72*** 17.01 14.60 14.42 12.22 5.54 4.81 11.82 16.54 21.84 14.96 12.34 11.96 12.80 19.2 17.4 8.6 3.1 5.7 9.3 7.5 7.2 17.6 28 26 48 100 62.5 56 48 48 48 a Community service was converted to months by dividing the total number of hours of community service by eighty (at a rate of twenty hours per week on community service). * p b .05. ** p b .01. *** p b .001. C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 sanctions, although the two samples differed in order of precedence. The two samples’ views of the stringency of community service when compared to prison presented an interesting anomaly when compared to the exchange rates for the other sanctions. Officers perceived that convicted offenders would do an average of 700.5 hours of community service to avoid twelve months in prison, while offenders were willing to do over twice as many community service hours (an average of 1,817.3 hours) to avoid twelve months in prison. This was the only alternative sanction where the mean for the offenders group was higher than that of the officer group. (This finding is discussed in detail below.) For each sanction, there were a number of offenders and a small number of officers who stated that they (or a bconvicted offenderQ for the officers) would not do any amount of the sanction in question to avoid twelve months in prison. One in twenty officers (4.9 percent) felt that convicted offenders would refuse to do any amount of day fine, and one in twenty-five (3.9 percent) felt that convicted offenders would not participate in any amount of boot camp. For all the other sanctions, less than one in fifty officers felt that convicted offenders would refuse to engage in that sanction to avoid twelve months in prison. Offenders, however, had very different opinions regarding whether or not they would completely avoid some sanctions to avoid twelve months prison. With the exception of regular probation (3.3 percent), at least one in twenty offenders stated that they would not serve any time on the alternative sanction to avoid twelve months in prison. In fact, one in five offenders (19.2 percent) stated that they would not do any time in boot camp to avoid twelve months in prison, with day fines (17.6 percent) and county jail (17.4 percent) having almost as high a percentage of refusals. It appeared, then, that for a core group of offenders in this sample, prison was preferred over any duration of an alternative. These results could show that offenders felt that intermediate incarceration was more harsh than prison, whereas, officers perceived that offenders felt that prison was more harsh. The results presented in Table 3 depict the means for both the samples to allow an easy visual comparison of the exchange rates. Observe that prison was scored as twelve months because all respondents generated exchange rates in comparison to twelve months of imprisonment. As the results depicted, officers felt that offenders would do far greater amounts of regular probation to avoid prison (44.23 versus 23.56 months). Furthermore, the exchange rates for the offenders were 45 Table 3 Comparison of officer and offender exchange rates Officers Offenders Sentence (months) Sentence (months) Regular probation (44.23) Day reporting (22.62) Electronic monitoring (17.57) Intermittent incarceration (16.88) Halfway house (15.62) Day fine (13.48) Prison (12.00 months) Community service (8.76) County jail (8.12) Boot camp (6.05) Regular probation (23.56) Community service (22.72) Day reporting (17.01) Intermittent incarceration (14.60) Halfway house (14.42) Electronic monitoring (13.95) Day fine (12.22) Prison (12.00 months) Boot camp (6.07) County jail (5.55) also more likely to hover around twelve months (e.g., 12.22 months for day fine, 13.95 months for electronic monitoring, 14.42 months for halfway house) than for the officers. Once again, the results presented in this table suggested that, compared to officers, offenders were much more likely to equate twelve months of most alternative sanctions with twelve months of prison, though offenders clearly perceived boot camp and county jail to be significantly more severe than prison. With regard to the severity rankings, two major discrepancies between officers’ and offenders’ rankings should be noted. While both officers and offenders identified regular probation as the least severe sanction, the officers’ rankings indicated a significant gap between probation and the next most severe sanction (day reporting)—a nearly twenty-two months difference in exchange rates. Among officers, the magnitude of this difference was greater than the difference between day reporting and boot camp—the most punitive sanction in the officer ranking. Officers ranked probation as significantly less punitive than did offenders, and felt that offenders would serve roughly twice as much probation to avoid imprisonment than offenders said they would. Put another way, offenders appeared to rate probation as significantly more punitive than did officers. In addition, note that officers ranked community service as the third most punitive sanction just behind county jail, and ahead of imprisonment, while offenders ranked it as the second least punitive sanction just above regular probation. Clearly, officers and offenders differed in their perception of the severity of serving community service. Finally, observe that with the exception of officers’ ranking of regular probation, the exchange rate range 46 C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 was similar for both officers and offenders, with exchange rates for all sanctions other than officers’ rating of probation grouping between 5.55 months for the offender county jail rate and 23.56 months for the offender regular probation rate. Discussion and conclusion Utilizing a sample of probationers, parolees, and probation/parole officers from Kentucky, this effort extended the extant body of research on offender exchange rates (e.g., May & Wood, 2005; May et al., 2005; Wood & Grasmick, 1999; Wood & May, 2003) to a comparison between officers and offenders under their supervision. The results from this study suggested that, with the exception of community service, officers felt that offenders were likely to do longer amounts of alternative sanctions to avoid prison than offenders themselves stated they would do. Furthermore, for county jail, electronic monitoring, regular probation, and day reporting, there were statistically significant differences in the exchange rates among the two groups. In each of these cases, the exchange rates of the officers were higher than those of offenders, indicating that officers felt prison was a more stringent sanction (when compared to these alternative sanctions) than did the offenders. Consequently, the results from this research suggested three important conclusions with implications for policy. First, the results from this research revealed that, despite significant differences in the amount of alternative sanctions officers felt offenders would do to avoid prison, officers did appear to have a rough understanding that offenders did not view prison as the harshest punishment (based on rankings of severity fairly close to matching offenders). From this standpoint, it is important that officers continue to have a voice in sentencing, as they appear to have a good understanding of the sanctions offenders think are most stringent. Many jurisdictions currently use pre-sentence investigation reports written by probation officers in their sentencing recommendations, and these findings support the utility of the PSI for helping to calibrate sanction severity with at least some regard for offenders’ subjective perceptions of sanctions. Secondly, in comparison to offenders, officers rated community service as far more difficult. The implications of this finding are threefold. First, this finding could be based on the officer’s past experience with offenders whom they supervised bsuccessQ in completing community service hours. As such, offenders may be basing their perceptions on how much they would be bwillingQ to serve to avoid prison while officers may be basing their perceptions on how much community service offenders on their caseload have bactually completedQ to avoid prison. Secondly, and perhaps congruently, these findings may also indicate that officers feel community service is more of a hassle to offenders than what the offenders think it would be. As such, given their role orientation (Gordon et al., 2003; Kifer et al., 2003), officers may be either more likely (punitive role orientation) or less likely (social worker orientation) to recommend community service as a condition of an offender’s community sanction. Those officers who follow a punitive role orientation may use community service as a bclubQ to either force offenders into compliance with community supervision or design conditions to make it easier to violate offenders, based on knowledge that they will be unlikely to complete the sanction given the onerous nature (from the officer’s perspective) of community service. Officers with a social work orientation, on the other hand, may be less likely to use community service as one of the conditions of probation or parole based on their sentiment that offenders will not comply with the requirements of community service and, as such, will be less likely to complete the sentence. Irrespective of role orientation, it is apparent that the officers view community service as more onerous than the offenders sentenced to community service, and this difference may have dramatic implications for community service as a condition of probation or parole. Future research should explore this topic in greater detail to determine why community service is perceived as a more severe sanction by officers than by offenders. Lastly, it is possible that officers may also incorporate a degree of shame/embarrassment into doing community service, and may feel that being forced to do community service in their home communities would expose them to the possibility of shame and embarrassment associated with community disapproval—something that offenders may not view as a serious concern. Finally, this research also revealed two other discrepancies between the perceptions of the officers and those of the offenders. First and foremost, offenders were far more likely to refuse to do any amount of an alternative sanction than officers thought to be true. Thus, as Wood, May, and their colleagues had suggested in other works (see May & Wood, 2005; May et al., 2005; Wood et al., 2005), there are some offenders who feel that any agreement to participate in alternative sanctions is only prolonging the inevitability of recidivism and incarceration. In other words, they feel the likelihood of being incarcerated for violations C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 of conditions of any form of alternative sanction is so high that they would rather go to prison immediately, rather than attempting to meet the requirements of an alternative sanction, then ending up in prison anyway following failure. A primary implication of this finding is that when community/local sanctions (electronic monitoring, probation, day reporting, and jail) are compared with imprisonment, probation/parole officers will often overestimate the extent to which offenders perceive imprisonment as being punitive. This, in turn, potentially has major implications for the supervision strategies that probation/parole officers have traditionally employed. Those strategies are based on the assumption that revocation followed by imprisonment is the ultimate punitive sanction as a means of enforcing compliance with conditions. The present findings, nevertheless, contradict that assumption and suggest that supervision strategies based on this logic may be misdirected. Indeed, the findings presented here suggest that officers would do as well, or perhaps better, to rely on threats of electronic monitoring, day reporting, or jail to enforce compliance. According to the data, revocation and subsequent imprisonment are not as punitive to offenders as to officers and supervision strategies that take this into account might aid in reducing the extent to which probation/parole revocations presently contribute to prison crowding. At a more fundamental level, the basic options for encouraging compliance with probation/parole conditions are to: (a) reward or give incentives for compliant behavior, or (b) punish, or threaten to punish, noncompliance. In general, community supervision strategies have placed far more emphasis on the latter than the former. Yet the effectiveness of the latter approach is in no small way contingent on the assumption that offenders and officers share similar subjective definitions of the level of punishment associated with various sanctions. The findings challenge this assumption and, hence, the viability of supervision strategies based on the assumption. These data also suggest that officers are more optimistic and feel that any offender can successfully complete alternative sanctions if they so desire. While this disjunction in opinion may be expected given the diametrically opposed roles in the criminal justice system, it is enlightening as well. Officers’ confidence that offenders can complete alternative sanctions is likely a function of the bsuccess storiesQ that they have supervised. Secondly, as the findings in Tables 2 and 3 reveal, offenders rate probation as significantly more punitive than do officers. Thus, 47 regardless of the explanation for this finding, offenders and officers have divergent views on the nature (and perhaps severity) of regular probation as an alternative to prison. Given this, it might be helpful for probation/parole agencies to establish a bmentoring programQ for new offenders under their supervision, with past bsuccess storiesQ used as the mentors. Exposing an offender who is serving an alternative sanction for the first time to a mentor who has successfully completed that same sanction could be helpful in a number of ways. First, it would give the newly sentenced offender a positive role model, a person similar to them who successfully completed the alternative sanction in question. Secondly, it would let the newly sentenced offender know that successful completion of the sentence is possible, even though they may consider completion unlikely; they may begin to develop confidence that, given some work and sacrifice, they too can successfully complete the alternative sanction. The research reviewed here was not without limitations. There was very little variation in the officer sample by gender and race, two of the strongest predictors of preference for prison over alternative sanctions among offenders. As such, research such as this should be conducted with larger, more diverse samples from other regions to insure that the findings presented here are not an artifact of the sample used. Secondly, research regarding perceived exchange rates needs to be extended to judges, legislators, and other criminal justice officials to determine how their exchange rates compare with those of probation/parole officers and offenders. To develop a continuum of sanctions that is truly fair, just, and possibly more effective at controlling recidivism, input from all the aforementioned groups needs to be considered. Appendix A The text used to describe each of the alternative sanctions is included below. A.1. County jail If you are sent to a county jail, you may spend less time there than you would in prison. Living conditions, however, are more restrictive in a jail than they generally are in a large prison. Unless assigned to work, you may spend more time in your housing unit, and there are not as many opportunities for sports, school, etc. Jail time is generally viewed as more boring and more restrictive than prison time. 48 C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 A.2. Boot camp Boot camp is for a shorter time than you would have been sent to prison. Boot camp can be more unpleasant in many ways than living in prison. Boot camp is like basic training in 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 loss of sleep. 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 an education program. Virtually all your time and activities are controlled. You are subject to random urinalysis tests and can be sent back to prison if you fail to obey the rules. A.3. 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 two hundred feet from your telephone, the 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 twenty-four 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 subject to random urinalysis tests and can be sent back to prison if you fail to obey the rules. A.4. 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 that probation officer 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 tests. 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 nonprofit 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. A.6. 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 non-work hours. Failure to abide by the rules can result in you going back to prison. You are also subject to random urinalysis testing. A.7. Intermittent incarceration With this punishment, you must spend weekends or evenings in the county jail, which typically is much more unpleasant than prison. Since you are not in prison, you can have a job and be involved with your family and community when you are not spending time in jail. Failure to report to jail or failure to pass a random urinalysis test, however, can result in you returning to prison. A.8. Halfway house A halfway house is a place where several people convicted of crimes live. There is no strict security like 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. You are not allowed to have visitors. A.5. Community service A.9. Day fine When you are sentenced to community service, you live at home and can have a job. You must, however, A day fine is based on the amount of money you make each day. You are allowed to subtract some C.M. Flory et al. / Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 39–50 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 ninety days, and your day fine rate is $20, you would have to pay a total of $1,800. Failure to pay your fines can result in you being sent back to prison. References Apospori, E., & Alpert, G. (1993). Research note: The role of differential experience with the criminal justice system in changes in perception of severity of legal sanctions over time. 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