Custodial sentencing

• Aims of custodial sentencing

  Involves a convicted offender spending time in prison or another closed institution such as a young offender’s institute or psychiatric hospital
• What are the four main reasons for custodial sentencing

  • Deterrence
  • Incapacitation
  • Retribution
  • Rehabilitation
• Deterrence

  The unpleasant experience is designed to put off the individual (or society at large) from engaging in offending behaviour.

  Works on two levels:

  • General deterrence - aims to send a broad message to members of a given society that crime will not be tolerated
  • Individual deterrence - prevents the individual from repeating the same crime in the light of their experience

  This view is based on the behaviourist idea of conditioning through punishment
• Incapacitation

  The offender is taken out of society to prevent them reoffending as a means of protecting the public.

  The need for incapacitation is likely to depend upon the severity of the offence and the nature of the offender

  e.g. society needs more protection from serial killers than an elderly person who refuses to pay their council tax
• Retribution

  Society is enacting revenge for the crime by making the offender suffer, and the level of suffering should be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime (based on the biblical notion of an eye for an eye)

  Many people see prison as the best possible option in this sense and alternatives to prison are often criticised as soft options
• Rehabilitation

  Many commentators would see the main objective of prison as not being purely to punish, but to reform.

  Upon release, offenders should leave prison better adjusted and ready to take their place back in society

  Prison should provide opportunities to develop skills and training or to access treatment programmes for drug addiction, as well as give the offender the chance to reflect on their crimes
• Prison is designed to be an act of punishment. Research has revealed several psychological effects of serving time in prison: stress and depression, institutionalisation, prisonisation
• Prisonisation

  Prisoners may become socialised into adopting an ‘inmate code’. Behaviour that may be unacceptable in the outside world may be encouraged and rewarded inside the prison
• Institutionalisation

  Inmates may become accustomed to the norms and routines of prison life, resulting in nit being able to function on the outside - Zimbardo‘s experiment shows pups did become influenced by the setting

  Prisoners can also become institutionalised due to their background on the outside - if they are homeless, they may like the routine of prison
• Stress and Depression

  suicide rates are higher in prison than in general population. Rates of self-mutilation and self-harm are also higher, possibly due to frustration or trying to regain control.

  The stress of the prison experience also increases the risk of psychological disturbance when released

  Crighton and Towl (2008) - found numbers of suicides among offenders in prison have increased, which could be due to overcrowding, low staff-offender ratio, lack of exercise and lack of access to medical services