America's Prisons | Creative Sentencing Can Provide Effective Alternatives

Creative sentencing refers to punishments tailored to fit the crime and rehabilitate the offender. For example, an adolescent convicted of vandalism was sentenced by a teen court to guard and clean the wall he vandalized. Another court, attempting to keep drunk driving offenders sober, gave them the option to take home alcohol-monitoring devices instead of posting bail. In the following viewpoint, David Mulholland suggests that creative sentencing can be more effective than imprisonment for many offenders. He asserts that its flexibility gives punishments more meaning by allowing judges...

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