Custodial sentencing

• aims:

  1. deterrence:

  • unpleasant prison experience is designed to put off individuals or a society at large from engaging in offending behaviour
  • works at two levels:

  1. General:

  members of a given society are given a message that crime will not be tolerated

  2. Individual

  try to prevent the individual from recommitting the same offence in light of their experience
• aims:

  incapacitation:

  • offender taken away from the public as a means to protect the society
  • depended on the severity of the crime
  • ie a serial rapist is most likely to be treated with custodial sentencing than an old man who did pay his taxes
• aims:

  retribution:

  • society is enacting their revenge for the offence by making the offender suffer
  • This should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence
  • This is based of the notion 'eye for an eye' as the offender caused someone harm they should get the same back
  • This is the most common for revenge and other treatments are criticised for being too 'soft'
• aims:

  rehabilitation:

  • In contract to the above, many believe that prison should be seen as a place to get better
  • Upon release the individual should be leaving as a different person as they have changed
  • Prisons should be giving offenders opportunity to do this ie programmes for anger as well as time to give to the offender to reflect on their actions
• Psychological effects of custodial sentencing

  Stress and depression

  • Suicide rates are higher in prison than in the general population as are incidents of self-harm. Stress of the prison experience increases the risk of developing psychological disorders following release
  • Institutionalisation
  • Having adapted to the norms and routines of prison life, inmates may become so accustomed that they're not able to function outside
• Psychological effects of custodial sentencing:

  Prisonisation

  • Refers to the way in which prisoners are socialised into adopting an 'inmate code'. Behaviour that may be considered unacceptable in the outside world may be encouraged and rewarded inside the institution
• Problems with recidivism rates:


  hard to obtain a clear figure as it depends what your looking for for example rates after a year of being released or longer.

  • IE in the UK, the ministry of justice reports figures of recidivism after a year of being released
  • Recent research has shown that the UK has said to be 40%
  • It also depends on other factors such as the age of the offender, country etc
  • For example Demark have regularly reported in excess of 60%
  • Whereas Norway have it as low as 20%
  • This is key as Norway dont place emphasis on incarceration rather rehabilitation etc