Dealing with offending behaviour: Custodial sentencing

Question 1

What are the 4 aims of custodial sentencing?

Answer 1

• Deterrence > prevent them/society from engaging in offending behaviour
• Incapacitation > Take offender out of society to prevent reoffending to protect the public
• Retribution > society enacting revenge for the crime by making them suffer, so there is justice
• Rehabilitation > make them fit in with society again

Question 2

Psychological effects of custodial sentencing

Answer 2

• Stress and depression
• Institutionalization (adapted to prison life, can’t function on outside)
• Prisonisation (unacceptable behaviour on the outside world may be encouraged and rewarded in the institution)

Question 3

What is recividism

Answer 3

Reoffending

Question 4

Limitation: psychological effects

Answer 4

• Carl Bartol suggested that imprisonment is ‘brutal, demeaning and generally devastating’
• Ministry of Justice found 119 people killed themselves in prisons in England and Wales in 2016
• A study found that 25% women and 15% of men in prison reported symptoms of psychosis
• Detrimental to psychological health

Question 5

Strength: opportunity for training and treatment

Answer 5

• One objective is rehabilitation
• Improved character means they may be able to lead a crime-free life when in society
• They can access education and training while in prison, increasing possibility of finding employment upon release
• Shirley (2019) found offenders are 43% less likely to reoffend when in college education programmes

Question 6

Weakness: school for crime

Answer 6

• May learn to become better offenders
• May give younger inmate in particular the opportunity to learn tricks from more experienced prisoners
• May also acquire criminal contacts in prison they may follow up when they are released
• Links with Sutherlands differential association theory
• Makes reoffending more likely

Question 7

Weakness: individual differences

Answer 7

• It cannot be assumed that all offenders will react in the same way
• Different prisons have different regimes, people would have different experiences
• Length of sentence, reason for incarceration and previous experience of prison may be mitigating factors
• May have pre-existing emotional/psychological prisons before going into prison
• Difficult to make general conclusions