Ch16

causes and controllability

• internal causes: personality or free choice

• external causes: powerful situation

• controllability: whether or not a behavior appears to have been under the control of a person

• stability: whether the cause of a behavior appears to be temporary (unstable) or permanent (stable)

• Criminal behaviors that are attributed to internal, controllable, stable causes tend to

  evoke anger and strong punitive responses

• Crimes attributed to external, less controllable, unstable causes may elicit sympathy,

  more lenient sentences, and an interest in rehabilitation

disparities in punishment

• race and gender of defendants and the political leanings of judges all appear to play a role in sentencing decisions

• hispanic males have the highest odds of incarceration and that young black males received the longest sentences

• male judges gave women significantly lighter sentences

  • less likely to be sentenced to prison for drug and property crimes

• for violent crimes, equally likely to be sent to prison, but women received shorter sentences

• life sentences were most likely when the juvenile was African American and when the sentencing judge was election and jurisdiction was conservative

guidelines

• sentencing guidelines: restian the discretion of judges

  • type of crime, viciousness, prior criminal record, circumstances of the current offense, and the average sentence given for similar crimes

  • they are not required to hand down the recommended sentence

• determinate sentencing: requires judges to hang down a sentence that falls within a prespecified range is a defendant is found guilty of a particular crime

  • sentencing reform act- commission of judges, lawyers, and legislators was established to develop sentencing guidelines

  • follow a grid

• united states v. brooker

  • allowed for some flexibility in using the federal guidelines

  • should be advisory instead of mandatory

three-strikes laws

• requires that criminals receive a long sentence or a life sentence when they are convicted of a third felony

• appears to have a direct effect on making sentences harsher for black men who commit felonies

parole and probation

• parole: refers to releasing inmates from prison under the supervision of the parole officer before their entire sentence has been served

  • six factors raise the risk that parole will be denied: bad behavior while in prison, initial sentence that is perceived by the parole board as too lenient fro the crime, being in prison for a violent crime, ling criminal history, evidence of mental illness, and input from victims of families urging denial of parole

• probation: involves withholding a prison sentence and releasing the criminal, who is then strictly supervised by a probation officer in the community

jails vs prison

• jails: usually short-term holding cells operated by cities or countries and administered by local authorities

• also where potentially dangerous defendants can be held before and during trial

• prisons: hold convicted criminals for long periods of time- sometimes a few years, sometimes decades

• federal prisons: for people who break federal law

minimum vs maximum security

• club feds: open-security federal prisons for offenders convicted of nonviolent drug offenses or white-collar crimes such as insider trading, fraud, and embezzlement.

• Some medium-security “campus style” prisons feature small, scattered buildings enclosed by a tall fence

• supermax prisons:Inmates are held in small cells, interaction is tightly controlled, and educational and recreational opportunities are scarce or entirely absent.

goals of imprisonment

• simplest goal is incapacitation through containment

• second goal is deterrence- hope suffering in prison will dissuade a criminal

• general deterrence- other people will choose not to commit crimes for fear of prison

• retribution-promotes mora solidarity among law-abiding citizens

• rehabilitation- tries to improve criminals during their time in prison

the 1800s

• two decades of experience with prisons led many to conclude that prisons created as many problems a they solved

• believed that prisons spawned crime instead of suppressing it

• fundamental shift: cause for criminal behavior is not only on the individual, societal disorganization was also to blame

• rehabilitation became the new ideal

the 1900s

• ‘medical model’

• classifications started to come out which was problematic because many prisoners belonged in more than one category

• this didn’t work which led to budget cuts and bad effects on the 1970s

• increasing emphasis on crime victims made the public less interesting in fermorning and more in making them pay for their crimes

some prisoner rights

• defining minimum health care standards

• raising due-process standards

• imposed limits on prison overcrowding

• prison rape elimination act

• whether or not a prisoner receives treatment is typically left to the discretion of prison wardens

• cannot be forced to take psychoactive medications until it has been determined that the drug is medically warranted or necessary to prevent that prisoner from doing harm to

  self or others

• 14-26% of inmates suffer from a serious mental illness

basic statistics on prisons and prisoners

• rate of incarceration in the US is about five times higher than that of any other industrialized democracy

• incarceration persists despite a dramatic drop in both violent and nonviolent crimes over the past 25 years

• longer sentences, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws, reductions in the use of parole, war on drugs, and the increased imprisonment of juveniles all contributed to the stunning rise in the rate of imprisonment

more stats on prisoners

• About 40% of prisoners have at least one other family member who has been incarcerated

• About 62% were regular drug users before incarceration, and fewer than one-third completed high school.

• Only 18% are married

• just over half earned less than $20,000 in the year preceding incarceration.

• approximately 55% of people sentenced to state prisons were convicted of violent crimes,

• 45% were convicted of drug, property, public order, or other crimes; in federal

  prisons

• 8% were convicted of violent crimes

the culture of prison

• prisonization- the assimilation of new inmates into the vales, norms, and language of the prison

• rewards and punishments can come from prison officials or other inmates

  • personality characteristics have much less influence on behavior than the characteristics of the situations (stanford)

harshness of prison life

• prisoners are banished form the outside world

• family members are poor and must travel great distances to visit

• mail can be censored or even destroyed

• prisoners have no decision-making power over important aspects of their lives

• physical environment is stark and oppressive

• lack of privacy, particularly for double-celled inmates

• threat or reality of violence - psychological toll

• enforced idleness and routine

• In male prisons, successful inmates are expected to gain and maintain the respect of others by cultivating a reputation of hypermasculinity and toughness.

• Same-sex rape is used to demean and dominate other inmates.

• effect of legal ruling limiting the ability of prison officials to physically punish prisoners had led to the increase in the power of prison gangs and for officals to take a passtice approach toward prisoners

does prison work?

• paid for by taxpayers

• by far the most expensive, average cost more than 34,000 per prisoner per year with some spending more than 60,000 annually per inmate

• a single murder costs society more than $1 million

• some prisoners have accelerated aging

• do a good job of incapacitating criminals

• good success of retribution as well

• failure against rehabilitation- likely to retire to a life of crime

• serving time in prison appears to have a criminogenic effect

what makes rehabilitation programs successful

attempt to:

1. correct educational and job skill deficits

2. change attitudes and thinking patterns that promote criminal behavior

3. improve self-awareness and self-esteem

4. enhance interpersonal relationship skills

5. reduce drug abuse

6. reduce contact with criminal peers

cognitive-behavioral therapy reduce recidivism by more than a third

therapies often target criminal thinking

alternatives to prison

• restitution- with money or through labor is a possibility for some types of crimes

• probation

  • can be strict

  • 43% are rearrested in 3 years

• temporary leave- inmates are permitted to leave the prison for about a day

• house arrest- involve parole requirements and that offenders do not leave their home or yard except to go to school or work

• residential community corrections centers

  • places where groups of offenders live in a communal environment and attend some form of group therapy