Graduated Sanctions: Stepping into Accountable Systems and Offenders

Graduated sanctions are being promoted in many new crime control initiatives, such as Breaking the Cycle and Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT). Like many attractive concepts, graduated sanctions are poorly understood in theory and poorly conceived in practice. This article presents a procedural justice theory for graduated sanctions and the critical components for this model. The legal issues of due process, double jeopardy, and separation of powers are reviewed to illustrate how graduated sanctions serve to protect the constitutional rights of the offender and to deter non-compliance. Finally, the implications for increasing compliance with release conditions are discussed in terms of the differential methods for implementing graduated sanctions.

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