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Indeterminate Sentence

a sentence of a person convicted of crime which is not a definite, but an indefinite length of time. Under the preceding practice of courts all prisoners were sentenced for a definite time, but in places where the indeterminate sentence is in use the judge simply gives the sentence as the law establishes it, e. g., not less than five nor more than twelve years.

This method allows the judge to free the prisoner if he has demonstrated the genuineness of his reform and to hold him to the maximum sentence if he has not.

This method has been approved by all the eminent penologists who maintain that reform of the prisoner is the aim of penology.