U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Stakeholder Perceptions of Sentencing & Pretrial Options for Misdemeanants, Summary Report

NCJ Number
234150
Date Published
October 2010
Length
10 pages
Annotation
In June 2010, a survey was conducted to determine 179 criminal-justice-system stakeholders' perceptions of various sentencing and pretrial options for misdemeanants within Metro Louisville, KY, including jail, home incarceration, misdemeanant intensive probation, monitored conditional release, day reporting, work release, the Court Monitoring Center, and Global Positioning System (GPS) enhancement.
Abstract
All of the aforementioned programs were viewed as "credible" by the respondents, with a significant majority (87.7 percent) agreeing that home incarceration was a "credible" sentencing option, followed in rank order by misdemeanant intensive probation (73.9 percent), work release (67.4 percent), day reporting center (61.5 percent), and the Court Monitoring Center (45.8 percent). Similarly, when respondents were asked to rate the credibility of pretrial options, a significant number of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that home incarceration was a "credible" pretrial option (89 percent), followed by work release (68.1 percent) and the Monitored Conditional Release Program (54.2 percent). A significant percentage agreed they had "confidence" in home incarceration (74.3 percent) as a sentencing option, followed in rank order of "agreement" by misdemeanant intensive probation (60.1 percent), work release (59 percent), GPS Enhancement (58.4 percent), day reporting center (53 percent), and the Court Monitoring Center (41.5 percent). A similar pattern of perceptions of confidence was evident for pretrial placement options. Respondents were also asked whether or not they believed the range of options provided accountability for individuals sentenced/placed into the programs. Overall, all programs were viewed as providing for accountability, in that one-half or more of the respondents indicated they believed all programs held individuals accountable; however, home incarceration and GPS enhancement received the highest accountability ratings. On a continuum of "restrictiveness" respondents believed jail to be the most restrictive sentencing and pretrial option, followed by home incarceration, work release, GPS enhancement, the day reporting center, and monitored conditional release. 7 charts and 4 tables