Forensic - Criminal Offenders Flashcards
What is the history of sentencing?
Late 18th - early 19th century:
> philosophers put an emphasis on the deterrence through rational puishment
> Severity became less important and the it now focused on being quick and certain
Early 20th century:
> focus on rehabilitation based on positivist philosophers
Recent:
> Limit possible harm by separating from society
What are the 5 goals of modern sentencing practices?
- Retribution
- Incapacitation
- Deterrence
- Rehabilitation
- Restoration
What is a risk assessment?
predicting the likelihood of re-occurance
What are types of prediction outcomes?
We want to maximise true positives and true negatives ie we predict that they will re-offend and they do, or predict they wont re-offend and they dont
What are the 3 types of risk assessment?
- Unstructured clinical judgement:
Clinical disgression and lack of guidelines - Statistical or actuarial assessment:
Purely statistical and based on evidence of risk factors
> evidence favours this over unstructured clinical judgement - Structured professional judgement:
utilising both research and clinical judgement
What are risk factors and protective factors?
Risk factors:
> measurable features on an individual that predicts the behaviour of interest.
Protective factors:
> factors that can reduce of mitigate the likelihood of violence
> can explain why many with risk factors do re-offend
What is retribution?
The act of taking revenge on the criminal perpetrator
Goal: Satisfaction
What is incapacitation?
The use of imprisonment or other means or reducing their capabilities of committing future crimes
Goal: protect the innocent
What is deterrence?
Aim to prevent people from committing a crime similar to the one being punished.
Can be specific and deter the individual, or general and make an example of the offender to the general public.
Goal: crime prevention
What is Rahabilitation?
An attempt to reform the criminal and change their behaviour
Goal: reduce further crime
How do we currently rehabilitate?
CBT: Our beliefs cause thoughts which cause behaviour. If we can break down the links and change the though process then we can change the behaviour.
Needs a motivation to change though -> do psychopaths have this motivation?
What is restoration?
Seeks to restore the victim and make them ‘whole again’
What are the four risk factors:
- Dispositional eg gender, age, impulsivity
- Historical
- Clinical
- Contextual eg lack of social support, ease to weapons etc
What are protective factors in adults?
High risk: employment stability
Low risk: strong family connections
What are the two types of deterrence?
Specific: where the goal is to prevent the specific offender from repeat occurrences.
General: seeking to prevent others from committing a crime similar to the one being punished by making an example of the person.
