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In general, sentences should be far more flexible. An American Bar Association committee recently urged maximum five-year terms, except for dangerous offenders.*But even with good pre-sentence reports, trial judges cannot predict whether x years will suffice. Some countries require written sentence opinions for higher-court review. American law should probably hand the job to penal experts. Federal judges already may send convicted persons to classification centers before sentencing; New York's bail-pioneering Vera Institute of Justice is retraining such people for three months before the judge decides. In California, which leads the U.S. and most of the world in systematic penology, judges give indeterminate sentences, and correction officials then determine the offender's fate according to his well-tested possibilities. In 1966, only 7% of California felons went to prison. Of all state inmates, 20% actually work outside in 80-man forestry crews, saving California millions.
Thus far, most American prison reform has focused on the traumas of release. The pacesetting federal system, which includes a no-wall unit at Seagoville, Texas, has institutionalized the "halfway houses" pioneered by religious groups to shelter ex-convicts seeking jobs. Intensive prerelease training at federal centers has cut some graduates' repeater rate by 15%. Texas boasts a remarkable six-week course at a relaxed center near Houston, where civilian volunteers (bankers, auto salesmen, personnel experts) teach felons how to get loans, buy cars, apply for jobs—things many never knew. Result: a repeater rate of 13.9%, down from 35% five years ago.
All this suggests that prisons are slowly absorbing a key lesson of modern psychology: desirable behavior is best induced by "positive reinforcement"—rewards rather than punishment. Thus, federal prisons and 24 states now use work-release schemes pioneered by North Carolina, where 12,000 select convicts have earned $10 million in ten years-even working as court reporters, while partly supporting their families, partly paying their prison keep and landing future jobs. At California's San Joaquin County Jail, one recent prisoner was an ex-airplane dealer who spent all day flying charter planes, duly landed for the night lockup. The big problem, though, is how to "reward" far less promising inmates. At the new federal juvenile unit in Morgantown,
W. Va., one well-researched solution is to let delinquent boys loaf completely—or choose to work and study for "points" that pay off at a penny apiece. Earnings can hit $40 a week, cutting confinement time in the process.