Dealing with Offender Behaviour: Custodial Sentencing Flashcards
What is custodial sentencing?
Custodial sentencing involves a convicted offender spending time in prison or another closed institution, such as a young offender’s institute or psychiatric hospital
What are the four main aims of custodial sentencing?
- Deterrence to prevent crime through fear of punishment
- Incapacitation protects the public by removing dangerous offenders
- Retribution punishes offenders in proportion to their crime
- Rehabilitation helps offenders reform and integrate into society
What is deterrence in the context of custodial sentencing?
Deterrence aims to discourage individuals from committing crimes by making the experience of imprisonment unpleasant
What are the two types of deterrence?
1/ General deterrence, which sends a message to society that crime will not be tolerated
2/ Individual deterrence, which prevents the offender from reoffending due to their negative experience
What is incapacitation in custodial sentencing?
The offender is removed from society to prevent them from committing further crimes, ensuring public safety
How does the need for incapacitation vary?
The severity of the crime and the risk posed by the offender determine the necessity of incapacitation
High risk offenders (eg. serial murderers + terrorists) require long term incapacitation
Low - risk offenders (eg those with minor crimes) may not require imprisonment
What is rehabilitation in custodial sentencing?
Rehabilitation aims to reform offenders so they can reintegrate into society successfully after release, rather than reoffending
What is retribution in custodial sentencing?
A form of punishment where society enacts revenge on an offender, ensuring their suffering is proportionate to the crime committed
How does prison support rehabilitation?
It provides education and skill training, improving employment prospects post - release
It also provides reflection time, encouraging personal growth and understanding of their crime’s impact
What are the three main psychological effects of custodial sentencing?
- Stress and depression - an increased risk of mental health issues, self harm and suicide
- Institutionalisation - difficulty adjusting to life outside prison
- Prisonisation - adoption of an ‘inmate code’ that may encourage criminal behaviour
How does stress and depression affect prisoners?
Suicide rates in prison are significantly higher than in the general population.
There is an increased risk of self - harm and the stress of imprisonment can lead to long - term psychological disturbance even after release
What is institutionalisation?
A process where prisoners become so accustomed to the routines and norms of prison life that they struggle to function outside of prison
What problems might an institutionalised prisoner face upon release?
An institutionalised prisoner may have the inability to cope with independence.
They may struggle with decision making and responsibility, having an increased likelihood of reoffending due to difficulty reintegrating into society
What is prisonisation?
The process where prisoners are socialised into the “inmate code”, adopting behaviours that may be unacceptable in the outside world but are rewarded in prison
How does prisonisation reinforce criminal behaviour?
Inmates may adopt attitudes that encourage aggression and defiance.
Criminal behaviours that are punished in society may be seen as status - enhancing inside prison.
Additionally, this can make rehabilitation harder, increasing the risk of reoffending after release
What is a limitation of custodial sentencing? (mental toll of imprisonment)
> The use of prison as a punishment has negative psychological effects.
> Psychologists observe suicide rates being high and realise young single men are most at risk.
> The Prison Reform Trust reported that 25% of women and 15% of men report symptoms of mental illness, such as schizophrenia
What is a limitation of custodial sentencing? (cause or correlation)
> It is difficult to draw conclusions about the negative psychological effects of prison, because of the potential confounding variables
> In relation to the data above, it may be that individuals already had symptoms of mental illness such as schizophrenia before they were convicted which makes it difficult to establish whether prison caused such problems
What is a strength of custodial sentencing? (second chance + employment opportunities)
> Prisons offer offenders the chance to access skill training which may increase employment opportunities in the future
> It has been found that offenders who do participate in education - based workshops in prisons are 43% less likely to re - offend in the future
> Prisons therefore carry rehabilitative values
What is a limitation of custodial sentencing? (crime school + offenders teach other offenders)
> Prisoners, particularly young prisoners may meet other experienced offenders and be taught new ways to commit crimes/learn new criminal skills
> Young offenders may also acquire criminal contacts which could in turn mean higher levels of re - offending in the future
> As a result, the rehabilitative value of custodial sentencing is lost
