What Do Alternative Sanctions Mean?

The singularity of American criminal punishments has been widely lamented. Imprisonment is harsh and degrading for offenders and extraordinarily expensive for society. Nor is there any evidence that imprisonment is more effective than its rivals in deterring various crimes. For these reasons, theorists of widely divergent orientations—from economics-minded conservatives to reform-minded civil libertarians—are united in their support for alternative sanctions. The chapter focuses on fines and community service because those are the punishments that proponents of alternative sanctions typically advocate. Fines are the most commonly defended alternative sanction. Proponents make an optimal-deterrence argument: fines are comparably effective to imprisonment, and enrich rather than impoverish society. Accordingly, society should impose fines rather than imprisonment whenever feasible. Community service is another alternative sanction whose popularity in theory is matched by its unpopularity in practice. Assessed under conventional theories of punishment, the public’s antipathy toward community service is mysterious.