Net Widening. A frequent goal of intermediate sanctions is to divert offenders from a sentence
that is considered too severe or expensive for a particular offender. In fact, a number of
intermediate sanctions are justified on the premise that such programs can divert less serious
offenders from prison into less expensive sentencing options. While such sanctions offer the
potential to provide more appropriate penalties and reduce costs, scholars have questioned how
new sanctions are utilized by the courts in practice. Research and experience indicate that
intermediate sanctions are often applied to offenders who would have received a less severe
sanction prior to the availability of the intermediate sanction. As a result, some offenders receive
a more severe sanction than they originally would have received prior to the creation of this new
sanction. Meanwhile, many offenders who were the targets for diversion by the new intermediate
sanction continue to be sentenced to the more punitive sanctions that existed prior to the new
program. In other words, the new program is used for less serious offenders, rather than the
originally targeted population. This is referred to as net widening, when a punishment is used on
a larger or different population than that originally intended.
Although some may see net widening as simply an appropriate increase in the severity of
punishment for offenders, this ignores a primary rationale for intermediate sanctions and poses a
problem for several reasons. First, net widening increases costs rather than decreasing them by
placing offenders who would have received a less expensive sanction (generally, the closer the
supervision, the higher the costs) on a more expensive form of supervision without similarly
diverting prison-bound offenders. Second, because closer supervision programs generally have
higher revocation rates for technical violations (Petersilia and Turner 1993), a percentage of the
offenders who might have succeeded under a less restrictive program will likely end up in prison
because of violations of the stricter rules of the intermediate sanctions. This could add to
operating costs rather than reduce them. A third major concern is the larger issue of social
control. By using new sanctions to impose more severe penalties on offenders rather than
diverting those who do not require a prison sentence, the criminal justice system is further
expanding its intrusiveness into and control over the lives of members of the community (Cohen
1985; von Hirsch 1990).