dealing with offender behaviour: custodial sentencing

custodial sentencing

• Offender spends time in prison or closed institutions (young offender institutes, psychiatric hospitals).

• Aim: remove offender from society to achieve punishment and other goals.

4 main aims of custodial sentencing

Four Main Aims of Custodial Sentencing:

1. Deterrence

   • Make prison experience unpleasant to discourage offending.

   • General deterrence: sends message to society that crime is punished.

   • Individual deterrence: stops offender from reoffending due to personal experience.

   • Based on behaviourist conditioning (punishment reduces behaviour).

2. Incapacitation

   • Offender removed to protect public.

   • Degree depends on crime severity and offender risk (e.g., serious offenders vs. minor offenders).

3. Retribution

   • Society enacts revenge—punishment proportional to crime ("an eye for an eye").

   • Many see prison as justified suffering; alternatives criticized as "soft."

4. Rehabilitation

   • Reform offender so they can rejoin society.

   • Provide skills training, education, or treatment (e.g., drug or anger management programs).

   • Encourage reflection and behavioural change.

Psychological Effects of Custodial Sentencing

• Stress and depression:

  • Higher suicide rates in prison (9x general population).

  • Increased self-harm, psychological disorders during/after imprisonment.

• Institutionalisation:

  • Prisoners adapt to strict routines and norms, struggle to adjust outside.

• Prisonisation:

  • Adoption of “inmate code” — behaviour rewarded inside may be unacceptable outside.

Recidivism (reoffending)

• Measures prison effectiveness.

• In the UK, about 45% reoffend within one year of release (Yukhnenko et al., 2019).

• Rates vary by country and offender characteristics (age, crime type).

• Norway’s low rates (~20%) linked to focus on rehabilitation over incarceration.

Psychological Effects Highlight Serious Impact + counterpoint

• Curt Bartol (1995): imprisonment can be brutal and devastating.

• Suicide rates (119 in 2016 England & Wales) show high distress, especially first 24 hours.

• Prison Reform Trust (2014): 25% of women, 15% of men show psychotic symptoms in prison.

• Suggests prison regimes harm mental health, potentially reducing chances of rehabilitation.

COUNTERPOINT

• Some prisoners may already have psychological problems before incarceration.

• The importation model suggests mental health issues may be “imported” into prison, not caused by it.

• Confounding variables make it hard to isolate prison as cause of mental health decline.

Opportunity for Training and Rehabilitation

• Prison can provide education and skills training.

• Vera Institute of Justice (Shirley, 2019): offenders in college programs 43% less likely to reoffend.

• Participation also linked to fewer violent incidents in prison.

• Suggests prison can help reform offenders if these programs are available.

“School for Crime”

• Prison may expose offenders to more experienced criminals.

• Younger inmates can learn criminal skills and build criminal contacts.

• This undermines rehabilitation and can increase recidivism.