Lesson 9 - Custodial Sentencing

Question 1

What is custodial sentencing?

Answer 1

Custodial sentencing involves a convicted offender spending time in prison, or another closed institution such as a psychiatric hospital or a young offenders institute.

Question 2

What are the 4 parts to custodial sentencing?

Answer 2

Deterrence
Incapacitation
Retribution
Rehabilitation

Question 3

What is Deterrence?

Answer 3

Deterrence is the term used to refer to the unpleasant prison experience to put individuals off from engaging in offending behaviour in the future.

Question 4

What are the two levels of Deterrence?

Answer 4

General Deterrence

Individual Deterrence

Question 5

What is General Deterrence?

Answer 5

General Deterrence aims to send a broad message to members off society that crime will not be tolerated.

Question 6

What is Individual Deterrence?

Answer 6

Individual Deterrence aims to prevent offenders from repeating the SAME crime.

Question 7

What is Incapacitation?

Answer 7

Incapacitation is where the offender is taken out of society to stop them from re-offending in order to protect the public. The need for incapacitation depends on the severity and nature of the crime committed.

Question 8

What is Retribution?

Answer 8

Retribution refers to society enacting revenge for the crime committed by the offender by making them suffer. The level of suffering should be proportionate to the the severity of the crime.

Question 9

What is Rehabilitation?

Answer 9

Rehabilitation refers to how after being released from prison, individuals should be better adjusted and ready to take their place back in society. Prison should provide opportunities to develop new skills, receive training or treatment for addiction, counselling and an opportunity to reflect on their crime.

Question 10

What are 4 psychological effects of custodial sentencing?

Answer 10

Psychological Disorders
Institutionalisation
Brutalisation
Labelling

Question 11

What are Psychological Disorders?

Answer 11

Prisons have very high incidences of mental illness for example, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide and low self-esteem, which stem from the oppressive prison regime. A study by the Prison Reform Trust (2014) found that 25% of women and 15% of men in prison had reported symptoms of psychosis.

Question 12

What is Institutionalisation?

Answer 12

Spending time in prison leads to a lack of autonomy, conformity to the role of a prisoner and a developed dependency on prison culture.

Question 13

What is Brutalisation?

Answer 13

Prison serves as a school for crime which reinforces criminal lifestyle and criminal norms. This leads to recidivism where 70% of young-offenders re-offended within 2 years.

Question 14

What is Labelling?

Answer 14

Prisoners usually lose touch with social contacts and find it difficult to gain employment simply because they are labelled as a ‘criminal’.

Question 15

What is an advantage of Custodial Sentencing?

Answer 15

+ Custodial sentencing can be useful as it provides justice to victims and also protects the public by removing a dangerous person from society. Furthermore, education in prisons increases the likelihood that offenders can gain employment when released, and treatment programmes such as anger management therapy and social skills helps modify criminals’ behaviour and attitudes which reduces the likelihood that they will re-offend.

Question 16

What are 4 disadvantages of Custodial Sentencing?

Answer 16

• Suicide rates are 15% higher in the prison population than they are in the general population. However, it is difficult to demonstrate cause and effect. Did institutionalisation cause psychological disorders or did offenders already have them before being institutionalised.
• Crime prevention is more effective that custodial sentencing because it avoids labelling a person and avoids the negative consequences of prison. For example, community service allows low-risk offenders to learn to not re-offend while avoiding labelling, keeping social contacts and their jobs.
• David and Raymond (2000) completed a review of custodial sentencing and concluded that the government tend to exaggerate the benefits of custodial sentencing in order to appear tough on crime (this is because the public are easily pleased as it is a form of retribution). However, they suggested that in reality, prison does very little to deter or rehabilitate offenders, but instead, has the sole function of pleasing the public and being a form of retribution.
• The courts need to be selective about who they send to prison where Peterson (1981) suggested that 8-10% of criminals commit 50% of crime. Therefore, custodial sentencing is best reserved for repeat offenders, and perhaps not any offenders with no previous history with crime.