Judge Howard Broadman of California's Tulare County Court thinks that there is something radically wrong with the current judicial system, and he is willing to test the boundaries of sentencing procedures to prove it. For his efforts, he has been appealed, applauded, criticised and shot at.
He gave a beer-thief probation on condition that he wear a T-shirt proclaiming his crime. He ordered illiterates to learn to read. A man convicted of hitting a woman was told to donate his car to the local battered women's shelter.
In his best-known case, Darlene Johnson, a pregnant mother of four, was convicted of beating two of her daughters with a belt and an electrical cord. Judge Broadman asked her if she would be willing to be implanted with the contraceptive Norplant as a condition of probation. He said that it was his duty to protect her 'unconceived' children. To avoid prison, Johnson agreed to the unusual sentencing suggestion. But then she violated probation by using cocaine and was sent to prison anyway. The Norplant issue became moot, but not before it secured Broadman's controversial reputation.
Alternative sentencing programmes that gives judges options other than prison or parole are on the rise. Ten years ago there were about 20 such programmes in the States; now there are more that 300, says Mark Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington DC group that promotes the use of sentencing experts for most non-violent crimes. Sentencing experts - usually lawyers of social workers - put together sentencing packages appropriate to the criminal and the crime with a view toward rehabilitation.
Many judges and sentencing experts argue that creative sentences can serve both justice and the community. Here are some examples:
As part of his sentence for molesting two students, a sixty-six-year-old Houston music instructor was forced to give up his $12,000 piano and post a sign on his front door warning children to stay away.
In Portland, Maine, a Bowdoin college graduate convicted of smuggling several thousand pounds of marijuana was sentenced to set up and run an AIDS hospice. The logic? The city needed the hospice, and the smuggler has the organisational and business savvy to make it work.
Edmonton, Canada, is cracking down on prostitution, making 1994 the 'Year of the John'. As part of the sentence for clients picked up in prostitution busts, Judge Sharon Vandeveen informs their wives. Dr Barbara Romanowski, director of Sexually Transmitted Disease Services in Edmonton, has proposed that the clients pick up used condoms in skin-trade areas as part of community service penalties
In Memphis, Judge Brown's sentences combine traditional and creative elements. The municipal judge argues that locking people up for longer and longer periods isn't working. He says the people he sentences typically are young drug users with no employment skills and long juvenile records.
Judge Brown says that, depending on the crime, his usual sentence for such offenders is two years in prison and five years of probation, with the incentive of sentence reduction if the offender passes the GED - a test of high school equivalency - and successfully completes a drug rehabilitation program.
Alternative sentences are also used in courts run by teenagers, with a real judge presiding, that have sprung up across the country.
In one case a graffiti 'tagger' - someone who puts gang or personal logos on walls - was sentenced to six months of guarding the wall he vandalised. If anyone marked the wall, he had to clean it.
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