Which intermediate sanction is used for offenders who are deemed the greatest risk to society?

Intermediate sanctions, such as intensive supervision probation, financial penalties, house arrest, intermittent confinement, shock probation and incarceration, community service, electronic monitoring, and treatment are beginning to fill the gap between probation and prison.

Much of the current interest in intermediate sanctions arises from political and economic pressures to devise credible punishments that can be imposed on convicted offenders for whose imprisonment the State would rather not pay. Policymakers are caught between the public's desire for criminals to be punished and an unwillingness to pay for increased prison capacity. Although the State's punitive powers should be used sparingly, credible sanctions other than incarceration must be available. Intermediate sanctions may provide the successive steps of a meaningful ladder of scaled punishments outside prison. The creation of meaningful intermediate sanctions removes the arbitrariness and unfairness that occur when prison and probation are the only choices available to a judge. Further, the idea of intermediate sanctions refocuses thinking about "net widening" and alternatives to incarceration. Recent developments affecting the use of intermediate sanctions are prison and jail overcrowding, cost savings, the professionalization of corrections personnel, structured sentencing, and normative trends. 176 references, 4 tables, and 1 figure