Coping with a Limited Capacity to Punish

Abstract

This project replicated a study by Farnworth, Golden and Tester in 1991 to determine if alternate sentencing practices, such as charge reductions and probation, were being used to decrease prison populations and lessen the burden on the criminal justice system as a whole. The previous article sought to support earlier findings that asserted that prison overcrowding caused an increase in the use of charge reductions and felony convictions, but found this to be untrue [1]. They actually found decreased use of charge reductions during the decade under study even as the prison population continued to rise. The current study analyzed data during the period of 1990 to 1999 from Pulaski County, Arkansas in the context of Pontell’s [2] concept of “a limited capacity to punish.” The Arkansas data analyzed also demonstrated a decrease in charge reductions as the prison population for the state grew thus supporting the previous research on the topic.