Write a response 100 words
Castner
In your response post to classmates, evaluate the model selected by the classmate. If you agree with the classmate’s view that the selected model is more effective, expand upon the points made by the classmate to defend this sentencing model over the other option. If you disagree, respectfully defend why you believe the alternative sentencing model is more effective.
In this week’s post we will be talking about determinate and indeterminate sentencing models and comparing and contrasting the two. Since the beginning of our country the ways people have be sentenced has changed and continues to change as time goes on. With indeterminate sentencing “at the time of conviction, an inmate did not know the length of his or her criminal sentence; rather, criminal sentences were fashioned around an inmate’s specific treatment needs” (Zhang, 2009) which means their term length was not specified at the time. Boards of people would look at the individuals performance and basically how they are doing and rehabilitating to see if they are ready to return to society or need more time. On the other hand determinate sentencing is when someone is sentenced to a specific amount of time and “can be released only after they have served their full sentence (mandatory release) less any “goodtime” received while in prison” (BJS, 2021). This leaves no room for the parole board to step in and say the inmate is ready to return to society. The inmate must serve there specific time stated and can only get time reduced if they get years reduced based on good behavior. So we can kind of look at these two sentencing models as one being more harsh than another because a set period of time is set at the sentencing hearing. They are similar in the fact that good behavior can always reduce time being incarcerated because even in determinate sentencing good behavior reduces time and good behavior in an indeterminate sentencing looks good to the parole board meaning a more lenient sentence or earlier release. Each of these sentencing models have an effect on recidivism which is when a criminal is released they are most likely to commit another crime and return to being incarcerated. Some people believe that determinate helps better with recidivism because of the harsh punishment and some believe indeterminate sentencing because of the rehabilitation focus helps criminals not return to incarceration. I believe a determinate sentencing approach is more effect in recidivism because of the belief that harsh punishment makes people not want to commit crime again. With a harsh sentence people serve their time and only get let out on good behavior but still have to serve. With indeterminate sentence, the person can act good or act like they are rehabilitated just to get released and possibly are only doing so to look good in front of the parole board. Many theories and experiments have been run to see if determinate or indeterminate sentencing keeps more criminals from returning but most of them contradict each other which is why society flips so much. We have determinate sentencing which leads to longer sentences and more people in prison and then society says the prisons are overcrowded so switch back to indeterminate sentencing in which we release inmates based on how they are doing. This goes back in forth but I truly believe the only way to learn from your mistake is paying your dues and doing your time and once your time is up, then a person would be less likely to want to come back. This does not mean that a person cant do rehabilitation programs and become better while incarcerated because they can, it just doesn’t determine there sentence from a parole board because they already have a sentence.