Indeterminate Sentencing

History

Indeterminate sentencing dominated ideas about and practices of criminal sentencing and corrections in the United States from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries. It emerged in its modern form at the National Prison Association meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1870 as part of a series of social inventions spawned by reformers during the Progressive era, which ran from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Throughout this time, rehabilitation prevailed as the official, professional, and reformist aim for corrections. Probation and parole emerged and developed as related institutions closely tied to the rehabilitative ideal and indeterminate sentencing.

Like other innovations or social inventions of the Progressive era, the indeterminate sentence grew out of reformers’ faith in science, rationality, government benevolence, and human progress. Thus, the indeterminate sentence ideally would proceed via information gathering, prediction, treatment, and ongoing assessment and eventually would culminate in release of the prisoner after professional review of the evidence found him or her “cured.” Reformers clearly saw utility in the less humane side of the indeterminate sentence as well; if never judged cured of their criminality, prisoners could languish in prison for the rest of their natural life.

Instead of the careful and thoughtful individualized treatment program envisioned by reformers, correctional institutions determined the actual experiences of inmates. In state after state during the Progressive era, indeterminate sentencing served as an expedient way of processing the dispossessed who had run afoul of the law. In particular, judges, prosecutors, wardens, and parole boards quickly adapted indeterminate sentencing to their own ends. Judges could appear tough on crime by pointing to the high end of the indeterminate range imposed. Prosecutors and defense attorneys could induce guilty pleas by emphasizing the possibility of early release. Wardens and correctional guards also had a ready means of eliciting inmate compliance with the reward of early release and the punishment of extended confinement contingent on institutional record, including discipline as well as program participation. Finally, parole boards depended for their existence on the whole mythology of indeterminacy and correctional treatment under coercion.

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