Probation Reform: Is Zero Tolerance a Viable Option?

Abstract

Can community supervision compete withincarceration as a means of crime control? MarkKleiman, professor of policy studies at the UCLASchool of Public Affairs and the author of When BruteForce Fails: Strategic Thinking for Crime Control, believesit can.1 At a July 2005 roundtable discussion sponsoredby the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Kleiman tolda group of researchers and prominent communitysupervision administrators, “If we get [communitysupervision] right, we could cut incarceration by 50percent, have less crime rather than more crime, andspend the same amount of money.”