Abstract
Since the 19th century, short custodial sentences were said to foster re-offending through alienating inmates from families and work. The present study is one of the few randomized controlled trials comparing short custodial sentences with community service orders. Between 1993 and 1995, 123 subjects were randomly assigned to community service or immediate custody (of a maximum of 14 days) in the Lake of Geneva area (Switzerland). The present study updates results published earlier on a follow-up period of 2 years by considering re-convictions and social integration over 11 years. Although statistically not significant, re-offending was tentatively more common among ex-prisoners in the long run. Eleven years later, ex-prisoners were better off, complied better with tax regulations, and did not fare worse regarding employment history or marital status. In line with recent systematic reviews, the results do not confirm the wide-spread assumption that short custodial sanctions are harmful when compared to community service.
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Notes
The ideas of this pioneer were rapidly taken over by writers in many countries, but usually without crediting him for these merits. The German-Austrian Franz von Liszt (1889) was one among the few to refer explicitly to de Bonneville de Marsangy. We thank Professor André Kuhn, University of Lausanne, for having drawn our attention to this original source of a popular idea.
For an overview of existing studies, see the systematic review by Villettaz et al. (2006).
On the origins of “community” work (or, if one prefers, forced labor) in ancient Roman and Chinese law and the revival of such sanctions in continental Europe from the 16th century, see the references in Killias et al. (2008, par. 1331).
Immigrants were also eligible for the program. The emigration of five subjects in all was, statistically speaking, not unusual considering the length of the observation period.
Reasons for exclusion were serious offending or serious violations of rules related to community service.
According to Swiss Penal Law, unpaid fines are to be commuted into custodial sentences. The defendant escapes this consequence if he pays the fine before the custodial sentence (or the community service) is being executed.
Opting for custody was “attractive” for originally unemployed subjects who managed to find a job before they had served the community service order. Since these subjects received the “opposite” treatment (rather than simply not the treatment they were assigned to), it was decided to exclude them from the analysis.
For details regarding the number of drop-outs, see the publication covering the first follow-up period of 2 years (Killias et al. 2000b).
Article 397 bis par. 4 that is now replaced by article 387 par. 4a of the new criminal code.
In practice, however, these two limitations were not very narrowly interpreted. Community service was introduced in 1991 and gradually extended to almost all cantons, and it has nowhere been discontinued before community service became a standard sanction with the new criminal code introduced in 2007.
Theoretically, the voluntary character of participation in this programs reduced somewhat the evaluation’s external validity (we do, indeed, not know how those fared who opted for prison), but left the internal validity unaffected. Although crucial in legal respects, the practical importance of having a voluntary program was minimal, however, because very few eligible candidates refused to participate.
Weisburd (2000) argues that random assignment is easier to justify whenever the capacity of a new program is insufficient to accommodate all volunteers.
André Vallotton was Director of Corrections and Claude Ruey Minister of Justice of the Canton of Vaud.
Such short sentences were quite popular among judges in Switzerland at that time, especially in cases of traffic offences (DWI), minor drug offences, or shoplifting, including other forms of minor thefts.
This group (of 36 subjects) was interesting because it allowed identifying the factors considered as important by those in charge of the program. As it turned out, non-randomly admitted subjects were particularly low risk and/or lived under unusually difficult circumstances. The group as a whole fared somewhat better than the two randomized groups (for details, see Killias et al. 2000).
Thanks are due to Mr. Roger Dolder, head of the criminal record services, and Dr. Bernardo Stadelmann of the Federal Office of Justice for having efficiently conducted this search. We also thank the Correctional Services of the Canton of Vaud for having provided the details that allowed searching for participants in the registers.
Especially in the case of community service, the execution of the sentence extended sometimes over longer periods.
We sincerely thank Mr. Philippe Maillard, Head of the Internal Revenue Service, for having permitted the search of the 118 subject’s IRS records and, thus, to have made possible to include data on life circumstances.
The incidence rates were, therefore, identical with prevalence rates (as given in Table 1), namely .39 for those assigned to jail during the first 5 and .24 during the following period, and .35 for those assigned to community service during the first and .37 during the second period.
For the period between 6 and 11 years, detailed data on offences are available. Traffic offences (mostly DWI) represented 55%, drug offences (usually consumption) 24%, criminal code offences (mostly minor theft) 19% and offences according to other laws 2%. Since these are typically the offences leading, at that time, to short prison sentences, it is likely that this distribution characterized the population from the beginning.
We cannot strictly exclude that mobility to other cantons was more common among those assigned to community service (we do not know subjects’ addresses). On the other hand, it is not plausible why community service should have “driven” subjects to other cantons more often than former prisoners.
Thanks are due to Dr. Frank Vitaro (University of Montreal) and Dr. Robert F. Boruch (University of Pennsylvania) for having drawn our attention to this possibility.
Particularly if such sentences can be served in a halfway house where professional activities can be continued under the day and inmates are being locked up only overnight and during weekends.
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Killias, M., Gilliéron, G., Villard, F. et al. How damaging is imprisonment in the long-term? A controlled experiment comparing long-term effects of community service and short custodial sentences on re-offending and social integration. J Exp Criminol 6, 115–130 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-010-9093-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-010-9093-5