Forensics L9-12 Flashcards
1
Q
What is custodial sentencing?
A
- involves a convicted offender spending time in prison or another closed institution
- such as a young offenders institute or psychiatric hospital
2
Q
What are the aims of prison?
A
- deterrence
- incapacitation
- retribution
- rehabilitation
3
Q
What is deterrence as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- unpleasant prison experience is designed to deter an individual from engaging in offending behaviour in the future
- deterrence works on two levels
- 1, general deterrence aims to send a broad message to members of a society that crime will not be tolerated
- 2, individual deterrence should prevent the individual from repeating the same crime
4
Q
What is incapacitation as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- offender is taken out of society to prevent them from reoffending as a means of protecting the public
- need for incapacitation depends upon the severity of the offence and the nature
of the offender
5
Q
What is retribution as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- society is enacting revenge for the crime by making the offender suffer
- the level of suffering should be proportionate to the crime
6
Q
What is rehabilitation as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- upon release, prisoners should be better adjusted and ready to take their place in society
- prison should provide opportunities to
develop skills, receive training or to access treatment programs for addiction - as well as receive counselling and have an opportunity to reflect on their crime
7
Q
What are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing?
A
- psychological disorders
- institutionalisation
- brutalisation
- labelling
8
Q
What is meant by psychological disorders as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prisons have higher incidences of mental
illnesses such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, and low self- esteem - study by the Prison Reform Trust (2014) found that 25% of women and 15% of men in prison reported symptoms of psychosis
- the oppressive prison regime can trigger psychological disorders
- Zimbardo’s ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ demonstrated the psychological effects of imprisonment
9
Q
What is meant by institutionalisation as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- spending time in prison leads to a lack of autonomy
- involves conformity to the role of prisoner and a dependency on prison culture
10
Q
What is meant by brutalisation as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prison acts as a school for crime and reinforces criminal lifestyle and criminal norms
- leads to high recidivism (tendency to reoffend), 70% of young
offenders re-offend within two years
11
Q
What is meant by labelling as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prisoners often lose touch with previous social contacts and find it difficult to gain employment
- as they are labelled as a criminal
- will all contribute to an increased likelihood of recidivism, tendency to reoffend
12
Q
Custodial sentencing, +ve evaluation:
A
- shows that justice has been done and
limits the danger to the public - many prisoners access education and training whilst in prison
- increasing the chance they will find employment upon release
- also, treatment programmes, such as anger management therapy and social skills training may help offenders modify their behaviour and so avoid reoffending
13
Q
Custodial sentencing, -ve evaluation:
A
- suicide rates are 15% higher in the prison population than they are in the
general population - but it is difficult to demonstrate that psychological disorders are caused by imprisonment
- prisoners with psychiatric conditions may
very well have had problems before they were institutionalised
= courts need to be selective about who they send to prison, 8–10% of criminals commit 50% of all crimes
= custodial sentencing is best reserved for these repeat offenders - crime prevention is more effective than custodial sentencing as it avoids labelling a person as a criminal and also avoids the
negative consequences of prison - alternative sentences, such as community
service, are more effective for low-risk offenders because they can keep their
social contacts and their job
= David and Raymond completed a review of custodial sentencing
= concluded that government ministers often exaggerate the benefits of prison in order to appear tough on crime
= suggested that, in reality, prison does little to deter or rehabilitate offenders
= it is done to appease the public or as
an act of retribution
14
Q
What is behaviour modification?
A
- behavioural therapy which uses operant conditioning
techniques to encourage positive behaviours
15
Q
What is token economy?
A
- form of behaviour modification sometimes used by criminal justice system
16
Q
How does token economy work?
A
- uses positive reinforcement in the form of secondary reinforcers
- secondary reinforcers (tokens) are accrued when a person displays desirable behaviours.
- desirable behaviour in prison is likely to include avoiding
conflict, following prison rules, keeping your cell orderly etc - tokens can then be exchanged for primary reinforcers (intrinsic reward)
- the rewards that tokens can be exchanged for vary from prison to prison, they may include extra phone calls, extra visits, special food etc
17
Q
What is brought to attention of prisoners when it comes to token economy?
A
- desirable behaviour and available rewards are made clear to the prisoners before they start the programme
- it is also emphasised that non-compliance or disobedience will result in the tokens being withheld, negative punishment
18
Q
What is done with the behaviour desired for token economy?
A
- the desirable behaviour is
identified - e.g. avoiding conflict
- then broken down into smaller steps, called increments
- e.g. waiting in line at mealtimes, not shouting at other prisoners etc
19
Q
How are other individuals involved in token economy?
A
- all those who come into contact with the offender must follow the same regime of selective reinforcement
- a particular prisoner is rewarded for particular
actions - whole programme is overseen by a prison official who is able to monitor the programme’s effectiveness on the management of the prison as a whole, as well as on the behaviour of individual offenders
20
Q
Behaviour modification TE, +ve evaluation:
A
- easy to administer
- it does not require expert professionals or specialised equipment
- it can be implemented by virtually anyone in the prison
- token economy is also cost-effective and easy to follow once the method of reinforcement has been established
21
Q
Behaviour modification TE, -ve evaluation:
A
- doesn’t work if staff are not consistent
- sometimes lack of appropriate training or high staff turnover make consistency problematic
= can only be used in controlled environment
= any positive behavioural change that occurs while the prisoner is incarcerated are
quickly lost once the prisoner is released
= is because law-abiding behaviour is not always reinforced on the outside and the rewards that result from
breaking the law may be powerful
= could also be because offenders just ‘playing along’ with the scheme to get the rewards
= and not really learning to change their behaviour - critics of token economy have suggested that it is unethical
- in some prisons participation in the scheme is obligatory
- although ultimately the offender can decide whether or not to obey the rules or break them
- the withdrawal of privileges such as exercise and contact with loved ones can be physically and psychologically harmful
= behaviour modification only deals with surface behaviour
= other treatments go deeper and require offenders to reflect on the cause of their offending
= and take responsibility for their rehabilitation
22
Q
What is anger management?
A
- form of cognitive behavioural therapy
- has a three stage approach
- cognitive preparation
- skill acquisition
- application practice
23
Q
What is cognitive preparation, AM?
A
- offender learns to identify the cues for their anger
- e.g. specific contexts or comments
- they reflect on events in the
past when they became angry - consider if the way that they
interpreted those events was rational - therapist’s role is to help the
offender redefine the situation as non-threatening - e.g. an offender might interpret someone looking at them as threatening
- but in actual fact the person ‘looking’ at them was just lost in thought
24
Q
What is skill acquisition, AM?
A
- offender learns skills to manage their own behaviour in anger-provoking situations
- techniques could be cognitive, positive self-talk to encourage calmness
- behavioural, assertiveness
training to communicate more effectively - or physiological, methods of
relaxation and meditation
25
Q
What is application practice, AM?
A
- offender has role-play opportunities to practice new skills and receive feedback
- they could role-play scenarios
which in the past led to anger/violence - offender must take this
seriously and see the scenario as real - the therapist has to be brave
and ‘wind up’ the offender - successful negotiation of the role play will be met with positive reinforcement from the therapist
26
Q
Anger management, +ve evaluation:
A
- multidisciplinary approach
- cognitive, behavioural and
social elements are included - acknowledges that offending is a complex social and psychological behaviour
- and any attempt to address it must include these different elements
= unlike behaviour modification, anger management tries to get to the root cause of offending behaviour
= the thought processes that lead to anger/violence
= rather than focusing on superficial surface behaviour
27
Q
Anger management, -ve evaluation:
A
- assumption that anger causes offending may be false
- many crimes, such as financial crime, are not motivated by anger
- even murder is not always
motivated by anger - Harold Shipman murdered over 215 of his patients during
his time working as a GP - his motivation was to alleviate their suffering
= programmes are expensive to run as they require a highly
trained specialist who is used to dealing with violent offenders
= many prisons do not have the resources to run such programmes - success of anger management is based on the commitment of those who participate
- this is a problem if patients are uncooperative or apathetic
28
Q
What is restorative justice?
A
- process of managed collaboration between the offender and the victim
- based on the principles of healing and empowerment
- trained mediator facilitates a meeting between the offender and the victim
- victim given the opportunity to confront the offender and explain how the crime affected them
- offender is confronted with the consequences of their
actions, including the emotional distress they have caused the victim
29
Q
What are the key features of restorative justice features?
A
quite diverse but all share these key things
- focus on acceptance of responsibility and positive change for offenders, less emphasis on punishment
- not restricted to courtrooms, survivors (seen as more empowering than ‘victims’) and offenders meet face-to-face in a non-courtroom setting
- active rather than passive involvement of all parties in the process
- focus on positive outcomes for survivors and offenders
30
Q
What may occur in some variations of restorative justice/
A
- offenders mau make financial restitution for the physical and emotional damage they have done
- offenders sometimes even repair damaged property themselves
30
Q
What is restorative justice an alternative to?
A
- can function as an alternative to custodial sentences,
especially if the offender is young - would be as an addition to community service
- or as an incentive to reduce an existing custodial sentence
31
Q
Restorative justice, +ve evaluation:
A
- Shapland et al. conducted a government funded research project
- found that every £1 spent on restorative justice would save the criminal justice system £8 by reducing recidivism
- but because restorative justice
requires specialist and highly trained professionals it is very expensive and finding funding has proved challenging
32
Q
Restorative justice, -ve evaluation:
A
- success of restorative justice relies on the offender showing remorse
- some offenders might sign up for the scheme to avoid prison, or reduce their sentence
- rather than from a genuine willingness to change
- could explain the high dropout rates in restorative justice
- offenders often change their
mind because they were not committed to the process in the first place
= victims may have an ulterior motive for agreeing to take part in restorative justice
= they may simply want to seek revenge - organisation ‘Women’s Aid’ has called for an end to the use of restorative justice in domestic abuse cases
- as offender can exploit this
opportunity to convince the victim to take them back - abusers often have a lot of power over their victims
- so a meeting between them could be dangerous
= unpopular with the general public because it is regarded
as a ‘soft option’
= means politicians are unwilling to support it as they want to please the electorate by seeming ‘tough on crime’
