Editor’s Note: The author’s dissertation is meticulously footnoted with all cited sources identified and credited. Space consideration, not to mention
sheer readability , have dictated that Jody Klein-Saffran’s careful footnoting and bibliographic work has herein been abbreviated or omitted.
Alternatives to Incarceration (Fall 1995) pp. 24-28
Electronic Monitoring
vs. Halfway Houses:
A Study of Federal Offenders
by Jody Klein-Saffran
The-following is a series of excerpts from the author's Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland. Jody Klein-Saffran works with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
* Author JodyKlein-Saffran, who works with the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Washington, D.C., copyrighted her Ph.D.
dissertation from which this feature is taken, in 1993. She dedicated this substantial work to her husband, Dr. Barry Saffran. Readers interested
in contacting Jody Klein-Saffran can do so through the editor of this magazine. *
THE ISSUES
In the quest for cost-effective, practical and appropriate alternatives to incarceration, policy-
makers have sought to implement a variety of intermediate punishments. The overriding rationale
for alternatives to incarceration is to alleviate prison crowding and the financial burden of
incarceration that has led to today's "crisis in corrections." With the advent of this "crisis",
criminal justice professionals have renewed their interest in community corrections programs.
However, unlike the community corrections programs of the past, which had rehabilitation as the
main goal, the primary goal of today’s community corrections programs is to provide surveillance
or incapacitation in a less expensive manner than incarceration. The philosophy behind
rehabilitation was premised on reducing recidivism. Currently, community corrections programs
are driven by political and economic pressures to devise safe ways to ease prison crowding (Tonry
and Will, 1988) in addition to reducing recidivism.
ABOUT HAL