The Importance of Purpose in Probation Decision Making

Abstract

Purpose can and should play a central role in any governmental endeavor, including most certainly the disposition of convicted criminal offenders. Each year tens of millions of dollars are expended by the U.S. correctional system apparatus, and millions of lives are seriously affected by the decisions made by justice system actors. Given these fiscal and human costs, it would stand to reason that clarity of purpose would weigh heavily in correctional strategies, determining both the allocation and varieties of sanctions imposed on offenders. However, as the undifferentiated expansion of U.S. corrections over the past twenty years vividly attests, the justice system has been anything but careful in its assessment and application of purpose. This symposium on the Model Penal Code’s sentencing provisions provides an ideal opportunity to take stock of the importance of purpose in the sentencing process. Published in 1962, yet based on work conducted during much of the 1950s, the tenor and substance of the Code’s sentencing provisions plainly bespeak the penological and legal views of