Punishment and reform as responses to criminal behaviour

• What are non custodial punishments?

  • Fines most common for less serious crimes
  • Community sentencing places requirements on offenders they must meet while serving sentences
  • Probation - period where offender reports frequently to probation officer where put under supervision where rules must not be broken

  When court decides someone is guilty:

  • Absolute discharge - no more action taken
  • Conditional discharge - offender not punished unless they commit another offence in a set period
• What is custodial sentencing?

  • Offender put in prison or secure hospital for term of sentence
  • Prison given for serious offences - males make up most of prison population
  • Can be held in secure unit in prison or special secure hospital where receive treatment if have mental disorder
  • Residential centres for young offenders provide combination of therapeutic treatments & social learning methods to treat offenders or harsh regime of physical training to control offender
• What are the reasons for prison?

  • Takes away freedom as punishment & protects public
  • Retribution - just world hypothesis where victim feels justice has been served

  Hebenton + Pease:

  • Punishments serves to reduce crime rate acting as a deterrent or having reforming effect
  • Deterrence based on operant conditioning & vicarious reinforcement - less likely to commit after seeing what happened to others
• What are problems with prison?

  • Overcrowding
  • Fear of violence
  • Mental health
  • Lack of freedom & boredom
• How does Dooley demonstrate overcrowding is an issue in prison?


  • Investigated unnatural deaths in England & Wales 1972-1987
  • Content analysis of government records and checklist of social, psychiatric and forensic offender history
  • 300 deaths were suicide
  • Suicide and unnatural deaths attributed to overcrowding and prisoner’s stress
• What is the effectiveness of prison?

  • Recidivism - 25% of prisoners go on to reoffend after release
• Why is reform necessary?

  • Douglas Hurd - focus on reform and rehabilitation is vital
  • Prison doesn’t work for everyone
  • Profile of offenders makes it difficult them not to reoffend e.g. poor job prospects
  • May be introduced to drugs in prison
• What are the roles of prisons in rehabilitation?

  • Offer therapeutic programmes - anger management & anxiety reduction

  Ireland:

  • Investigated if anger management works
  • Prisoners completed CALM programme
  • Completed CALM - rated selves lower on anger questionnaire
  • 92% showed improvement
  • Effective in short term
• How does Gillis + Nafekh show roles of prisons in rehab?


  • Relationship between employment status & community outcomes for 2 groups of offenders
  • Those employed on conditional release and matched to comparison of offenders unemployed and matched on age, length of sentence etc.
  • Both employed men & women more likely to remain on conditional release until end of sentence and less likely to return to prison
  • Being involved in planned employment at time of release from prison shows how prison acts as reform for offenders to integrate them into society