9. the psychological effects of custodial sentencing

4 Negative psychological effects of custodial sentencing

• brutalisation

• Psychological problems/disorders

• Labelling

• Institutionalisation

Brutalisation

Prison acts as school for crime, reinforces criminal lifestyle and criminal norms - leads to high recidivism rates

Stat to show brutalisation

Almost 69.9 % of young offenders reoffend within 2 years

Psychological problems/disorders

Higher incidence of mental health illnesses in prison (e.g. depression, anxiety, self harm, self mutilation)

Suicide rates higher than in general population- 3.7x for men

Risk of suicide is greater in first 30 days - adjusting to prison life is too psychologically distressing for some inmates

Labelling

Leads to loss of social contacts, reduced employability - all affecting recidivism rates

Institutionalisation

Leads to lack of autonomy, conformity to roles and a dependency culture

Also leads to recidivism

Inmates may have become so used to the norms and routines of the prison that they are no longer to function in the outside world

Positive psychological effects

Opportunities for treatment, rehabilitation, learn to feel remorse

AO3- causation

P- one of the issues with looking at the effects of custodial sentencing is causation

E- difficult to show if the mental health issues are due to prison/institutionalisation or if they were there before prison

E- chief inspector of prisons report studied 469 males and females and found that 42% had already been diagnosed with a mental illness, e.g. anxiety, OCD

L- regardless of where these issues came from, custodial sentencing is proven to make these issues worse and the fact that suicide rates in men are 3.7x higher in prison than in the general population allows us to say that custodial sentencing can cause negative psychological effects in some and exacerbate them in others

AO3- individual differences

P- not everyone reacts to prison in the same way

E- women- self harm rates in prison are 5x higher than men - negative psychological effects of custodial sentencing are worse for women than for men

E- neurodiverse prisoners-

Prison environment can cause psychological distress including busy and noisy wings, cell sharing and changes to daily routine

Talbot found those with learning difficulties are 3x more likely to have clinically significant anxiety and depression than the rest of prison populations

L- for vulnerable groups psych problems even more pronounced

However - it depends on the person: type of prison, length of sentence, reason for incarceration may all be important factors

Difficult to draw general conclusions and apply them to every prison and every prisoner

AO3- alternatives

P- alternatives to custodial sentencing may be better for low risk offenders if all of these negative psychological effects are a possibility

E- community sentencing= avoids the psychological problems of prison and avoids labelling by allowing prisoners to maintain their employment and social contacts by carrying out unpaid work in the community

E- also offers (when necessary) drug and alcohol treatment programmes and rehabilitation opportunities in the community

L- as 61% of current prisoners had committed a non violent offence and recidivism rates are high (57.7%) for those serving less than 12m community sentencing may be much more beneficial

HOWEVER not suitable for all offenders, especially for those who have committed violent or sexual acts