Does Alternative Sentencing Reduce Recidivism? A Preliminary Analysis

Traditional sentencing in America by the way of mass incarceration is a three-fold failure: it does not deter crime, it institutionalizes the inmates and it does so at an incredible cost to the state. There are alternative sentencing measures that can be implemented, and have been done so in various states, but there are not enough statistics that show alternative sanctions will reduce recidivism. But do alternative sentencing programs reduce recidivism as compared to traditional sentencing? This paper is dedicated to discovering the relative efficacy of alternative sentencing by comparing the rates of recidivism between communities that do and do not implement alternative sentencing. Alternative sentencing is enticing because it theoretically reduces recidivism through allowing the offenders to avoid institutionalization and concordantly become a contributing member of society, while drastically reducing corrections costs. It is possible that the evidence will not be able to reject the null hypothesis, which is alternative sentencing does not reduce recidivism compared to alternative sentencing, but it is highly probable that alternative sentencing does not increase recidivism, and when you combine that realization with the essentially guaranteed drastic reduction of costs, it would seem prudent for states to at least give alternative sentencing a test run.