Custodial sentencing

• What is custodial sentencing?

  • Involves a convicted offender spending time in prison or another closed institution like a young offender's institute or psychiatric hospital
• What are the 4 main aims of custodial sentencing?

  1. Deterrence: unpleasant prison experience is designed to put people off of offending in the first place - can be general deterrence (broad message to society that crime won't be tolerated) or individual deterrence (preventing someone from reoffending based on their unpleasant experiences)
  2. Incapacitation: offender is removed from society to prevent reoffending and to protect the public, usually for more severe crime
  3. Retribution: society is enacting revenge by making the offender suffer
  4. Rehabilitation: prisons should reform individuals and prepare them for life outside again, focusing on skills development or access to treatment, and a chance at reflection
• What are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing?

  • Stress and depression evidenced by higher suicide rates in prison compared to the general population, as well as incidents of self-mutilation and harm - increases risk of developing mental disorders and prevents rehabilitation
  • Institutionalisation - inmates may be so accustomed to the norms and routines of prison life that they find it harder to function on the outside
  • Prisonisation - the way in which prisoners are socialised into adopting an 'inmate code' where socially unacceptable behaviours are encouraged and rewarded inside the prison (DAT)
• What is one strength of custodial sentencing?

  • Opportunity for training/treatment: Shirley (2019): The Vera Institute of Justice claims offenders who take part in college education programmes are 43% less likely to re-offend following release
  • Prisons who offer these report less incidents of violence, showing that prisons arguably meet their objective of rehabilitation providing that offenders are able to access these programmes
• What is one limitation of custodial sentencing?

  • Severe psychological effects: Bartol (1995) said imprisonment can be 'brutal, demeaning, and generally devastating'
  • Ministry of Justice (2016): English and Welsh prisons saw 119 suicides, a 29% increase from their previous year
  • Prison Reform Trust (2014): 25% of women and 15% of men reported symptoms of psychosis
  • Shows that oppressive prison regimes may be detrimental to psychological health which could negatively impact rehabilitation
• What is another limitation of custodial sentencing?

  • Confounding variables: Prison Reform Trust figures don't account for offenders who were experiencing psychotic symptoms BEFORE they were incarcerated
  • Many convicted offenders have pre-existing psychological and emotional difficulties and may import these problems (importation model)
  • We do not know if this is a problem w/ the prison regime or something else, suggesting there may be confounding variables in the link between prison and its' psychological effects
• What is another limitation of custodial sentencing?

  • Recidivism: reoffending after conviction - Ministry of Justice (2013) suggest that 57% of UK offenders will re-offend within a year of release
  • In 2007, 14 prisons reported recidivism rates of 70% over 5 years
  • Walker et al. (1981) found that the length of a sentence did nothing to deter repeat offenders from committing crime once released
  • Shows custodial sentencing is clearly ineffective and has not reached its aims as it cannot prevent recidivism