Theory and Evidence on the Swift-Certain-Fair Approach to Enforcing Conditions of Community Supervision
ResearchPosted on rand.org Apr 22, 2015Published in: Federal Probation: A Journal of Correctional Philosophy and Practice, v. 78, no. 2, Sep. 2014, p. 71-74
Swift-certain-fair (SCF) sanctioning improves on conventional practice in enforcing the conditions of community corrections both by substituting swiftness and certainty for severity and by increasing the predictability, and thus the perceived fairness, of the process from the offender's viewpoint. SCF can also complement, or substitute for, the expensive and laborious process of formal risk-needs assessments in the process of allocating scarce supervisory and service capacity across offenders. SCF has both firm theoretical grounding and a growing body of empirical support as a means of reducing reoffending and the time participants spend behind bars.
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