Custodial sentencing

• -        Retribution – Justice

  o   Justice is served when the family or victim perceives the offender as suffering.

  o   Based on idea that criminal should pay.

  o   Punishment via depriving them of freedom.

  o   Punishment should be proportional to wrongdoing of crime.
• -        Incapacitation – Protection

  o   Removing offender from society to safeguard public.

  o   Necessity of incapacitation is dependent on security of crime committed.
• -        Deterrence – Discouragement

  o   Prisons are designed to be unpleasant to deter individuals from engaging in crime.

  o   General deterrence – giving a message to the public to show that crime will not to be tolerated.

  o   Individual deterrence – to prevent criminals from reoffending.
• -        Rehabilitation – Education

  o   Prisons should offer offender rehabilitation, development of skills + education.

  o   E.g. info about drugs.

  o   To facilitate reflection on crime + personal development to reintegrate into society.
• -        A strength of prison is that it may provide opportunities for training and treatment.

  o   For example, one of the main aims is to rehabilitate and therefore provide access to education and training whilst in prison to increase the possibility of finding employment upon release.

  o   Access to training and treatment should lead to reduced recidivism rates and improved character, a positive of custodial sentencing.

  o   This suggests prison may be a worthwhile experience, assuming offenders are able to access these programmes (some prisons lack resources to do these things).
• Strengths

  -        Protects society

  -        Looks at long term effects – attempts rehabilitation.
• -        Prisons may be referred to as ‘universities of crime’ a weakness of custodial sentencing

  o   For example, this idea is consistent with the work of Sutherland who suggested offending behaviour increases when associating with people who have pro-criminal attitudes.

  o   This is because it gives younger inmates (in particular) an opportunity to learn the ‘tricks of the trade’ from more experienced offenders.

  o   This undermines the attempt to rehabilitate offenders, making reoffending more likely, a weakness of custodial sentencing.
• -        A weakness of custodial sentencing is that punishment isn’t given immediately, reducing its effectiveness.

  o   Research demonstrates that for around 50% of the prison population, punishment does not work.

  o   This is because of the delay of going to prison which behaviourists would suggest removes the feeling of punishment. They might see the sentence as a punishment for being caught, not a punishment for the offence. May try harder to avoid police.

  o   As a result, punishment (from being in prison) doesn’t seem to effect the likelihood of reoffending and is therefore a weakness.