custodial sentencing

Question 1

What is custodial sentencing?

Answer 1

judicial sentencing determined by the court, where the offender is punished by spending time in prisons or other institutions such as psychiatric hospitals

Question 2

What is deterrence based on?

Answer 2

conditioning principles (punishment)

Question 3

What are the 2 types of deterrence?

Answer 3

Individual and general

Question 4

Describe the 2 levels of deterrence.

Answer 4

Individual - the unpleasant experience of prison is designed to put an individual off repeating the same crime again
general - aims to send a message to the members of society that this crime will not be tolerated

Question 5

What does incapacitation aim to do?

Answer 5

take the offender out of society to protect the public from offending behavior

Question 6

What is the need for incapacitation depend on?

Answer 6

the severity of the crime e.g. a serial killer is much more likely to get out of society than those not paying their council tax

Question 7

What is retribution?

Answer 7

society enacts revenge and makes the offender suffer
level of suffering is proportionate to the severity of the crime.

Question 8

What does rehabilitation aim to do?

Answer 8

reform of the offender (he or she learns new values and stops being a criminal)
prisons should provide a new opportunity to offenders to develop new skills, access addiction treatments, and reflect on crimes.

Question 9

what are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing?

Answer 9

stress and depression, institutionalization, prisonization

Question 10

what is recidivism?

Answer 10

Reoffending, a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior in the context of crime, an offender who repeats a crime.

Question 11

which countries have higher and lower recidivism rates?

Answer 11

UK and US are high
Norway - low because they have rehabilitation

Question 12

the limitation is the psychological effects of custodial sentencing

Answer 12

• Bartol - prison can be brutal and devastating
  suicide rates are 15 times higher than the general population
• young single men in the first 24 hours of confinement are more at risk
• PRT found that 24% of women and 15% of men reported symptoms of psychosis
  -far from effective in rehabilitating the individual

Question 13

individual differences

Answer 13

• prison times are damaging but we cannot assume that all offenders react in the same way
• different prisons have different regimes and experiences vary
• length of sentencing, the reason for incarceration, and previous prison experience are more likely to affect reactions
• some may have pre-existing vulnerabilities
• cannot make conclusions and base them on every prisoner.

Question 14

opportunity for rehabilitation

Answer 14

• rehabilitation model argues that every offender goes on to be a better person and is less likely to re-offend
• many prisoner access education, training, and anger management programs
• prison life is a worthwhile experience knowing that offenders have access to such programs
• but evidence of long-term benefits from prison schemes is inconclusive
• potential benefits of rehabilitation are a strength, but the lack of evidence undermines this argument.