[외국제도]미국의 자유형과 그 대체제도에 관한 연구

Imprisonment and its Substitutes in the United States

The current predominate sentencing structure for most States in U.S.A. is the indeterminate sentence, which has a fixed minimum and a fixed maximum term for incarceration(36 States and the District of Columbia). The actual amount of time served is determined by the paroling authority. But because of excessive sentencing disparity and criticisms of the rehabilitative ideal, some States have replaced indeterminate sentencing with structured sentencing schemes such as determinate sentencing. The best known statutory determinate sentencing plan is California’s. In 1976 the state adopted a multiple choice approach. For example, the sentencing options for the first-degree burglary include imprisonment in the state prison for two, four, or six years(Cal. PC, §461). In a normal case, the trial judge is expected to impose the middle. And all States employ some version of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which target habitual offenders and the crimes of possessing a deadly weapon, driving under the influence of alcohol, and possessing and/or distributing drugs. Until late 1970s, offenders were either incarcerated or they were given routine probation. In other words, at that time the United States had relatively little intermediate punishment for crime. The intermediate sanction programs (ISPs) emerged in the 1980s in United States as a effective solution to prison crowding. The most popular are intensive probation or parole, house arrest, electronic monitoring, boot camps, shock incarceration, restitution, community service.