CUSTODIAL SENTENCING

~Custodial Sentencing~

→ Involves an convicted offender spending time in a prison or psychiatric hospital

Reasons for this:

Deterrence

• Unpleasant prison experience puts off the individual from engaging in offending behaviour

  Incapacitation

• Offender taken out of society to prevent them from reoffending, and it protects the public

Retribution

• Society enacts revenge for the crime by making the offender suffer

Rehabilitation

• Aim is to reform offenders and not just punish them

• Prison should provide opportunities for training and developing new skills so they are better prepared to reinsert themselves back into society

~Psychological Effects Of Custodial Sentencing~

→ High suicide rate

→ Increased psychological difficulties upon release

→ Difficulty moving on from the norms and routines of prison

→ Behaviour that may be considered inappropriate in the outside world may be rewarded in prison

~Problem With Recidivism~

→ 57% of UK offenders reoffend within a year

→ UK & US have highest reoffending rates in the world

EVALUATION

Research Support:

→ PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TRAINING AND TREATMENT

• One strength of custodial sentencing is that it provides an opportunity for training and treatment.

• One objective of imprisonment is rehabilitation - offenders may become better people during their time in prison.

• Many offenders access education and training whilst in prison, increasing the possibility that they will find employment upon release.

• This suggests that prisons may be a worthwhile experience, assuming offenders are able to access these programmes.

Conflicting Evidence:

→ NEGATIVE EFFECT ON PRISONERS

• One limitation is that there is a negative effect on prisoners.

• Bartol (1995) has suggested that imprisonment can be ‘brutal, demanding and generally devastating’. According the the ministry of justice, a record 119 people killed themselves in prison in England and Wales in 2016.

• This equals to an average suicide of one every 3 days - almost 9X higher than in the general population - most at risk are young single men during the first 24 hours of confinement.

• This suggests the view that oppressive prison regimes may be detrimental to their psychological health which could impact on rehabilitation.

• However, the figures in the Prison Reform Trust Study do not include the number of inmates who were experiencing psychotic symptoms because they were incarcerated.

• Many of those convicted may have pre-existing psychological and emotional difficulties at the same time they were convicted.

• This suggests there may be confounding variables that influence the link between prison and its psychological effect.

→ MAY BECOME BETTER OFFENDERS

• Another limitation is that offenders may learn to become better offenders whilst serving their custodial sentence.

• Alongside legitimate skills that offenders may acquire during their time in prison, they may also undergo a more dubious ‘education’ as part of their sentence.

• Offenders may also acquire criminal contacts whilst in prison that they may follow up when they are released.

• This form of ‘education’ may undermine attempts to rehabilitate prisoners, and consequently make reoffending more likely.