Deck 11: What Are the Alternatives to Incarceration

Question 1

In any given year, about __________ of every 100 probationers fail.

A) 16
B) 36
C) 41
D) 34

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What is the aim of intermediate sanctions?

A) They provide additional sanctions.
B) They ensure that defendants serve most of their time.
C) They let nonviolent offenders out of prisons.
D) They bridge the gap between ordinary probation and jail or prison.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What is the Iron Law of Imprisonment?

A) Most inmates die of old age in prisons.
B) Inmates must pay the full price for their crimes.
C) With a few exceptions, most inmates return home.
D) Act of restraining a person in a bounded area.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

One of the challenges of paroling prisoners is that we seldom adequately prepare prison inmates for release. What is the other?

A) We do not provide them with supervision.
B) We do not provide enough community support for them once they are out.
C) Inmates often dislike their parole officer.
D) Inmates do not want help.

Question 5

Specialized courts are intended primarily for what kind of defendants?

A) Felony cases
B) Defendants with drug problems
C) Repeated offenders
D) Nonviolent misdemeanor defendants

Question 6

What is the key to the success of specialized courts?

A) The power to impose tougher sentences
B) The resources for supervision and treatment and proper staffing
C) The ability to send serious juvenile offenders to adult courts
D) Judges who can follow sentencing guidelines strictly

Question 7

California voters approved the Proposition 36 (2000) and Proposition 47 (2014) ballot initiatives. How did Proposition 36 change the law?

A) It enabled drug offenders to apply for resentencing.
B) It diverted thousands of individuals from jails and prisons.
C) It provided treatment for nonviolent drug offenders instead of incarceration.
D) It enabled California to reduce their jail and prison populations.

Question 8

What is the aim of day reporting centers (DRCs)?

A) Strictly supervision and control
B) Handling specialized caseloads
C) Imposing new tougher community sanctions
D) Supervision combined with rehabilitation

Question 9

Boot camps (also known as shock incarceration) emerged as intermediate correctional programs in the early 1980s. The first camps were modeled on military training and emphasized drill, strict rules, and physically demanding challenges that engaged the participants from dawn to dusk. What was wrong with them?

A) They were simply ineffective.
B) They were rehabilitative, but some young offenders were traumatized.
C) They were often not aggressive enough in their approach.
D) Their costs were exorbitant.

Question 10

One of the ways to reduce jail crowding is by reforming bail practices. There is a growing controversy about the fairness of poor inmates serving lengthy pretrial detentions for minor offenses. A community-based alternative, pretrial supervision is releasing detainees

A) and placing them in house arrest.
B) with a device to monitor their movements.
C) who have positive social supports on their own recognizance.
D) under intensive supervised probation.

Question 11

The common element of specialized courts and the community-based interventions that support them is that they do not use coercion to make offenders comply with their treatment.

Question 12

Gamblers and the homeless courts were the first specialized courts, which are also known as problem-solving courts.

Question 13

One of the problems with specialized courts is that they may actually extend the reach of the criminal justice system, a practice also known as net-widening.

Question 14

There are a growing number of policymakers, academics, and practitioners who have questioned the wisdom of imprisoning so many drug offenders and then providing few comprehensive treatment opportunities.

Question 15

Only about 11 percent of inmates incarcerated for drug offenses receive some form of drug treatment while in prison.

Question 16

Community-based treatment is considerably cheaper than treatment while incarcerated and allows probationers to remain at home and continue to work or attend school.

Question 17

Today, probation officers are trained mainly in social work, and their role is to help clients.

Question 18

Most prisoners have very little positive social capital, such as the informal networks that would enable them to find jobs or housing.

Question 19

The barriers that inmates once faced upon reentry in the past and that might have increased their likelihood of recidivism no longer exist.

Question 20

Advocates of the due process philosophy support better methods of prisoner reentry into society, but advocates of crime control oppose it because they favor indefinite incarceration.