Custodial sentencing and recidivism :dealing with offender behaviour

What is custodial sentencing:

One where the cdourt requires an offender to be held in prison or another closed community like a psychiatric hospital.

Aims:

To protect the public: incapacitation, to punish and prevent recidivism, retribution, rehabiliation

Recidivism:

• Recidivism refers to re-offending
• The prison reform trust reported 46% of adults are reconvicted within a year. This figure rises to 67% for those under the age of 18.
• The cost to the economy is £9.5 billion a year.

To protect the public:

Putting criminals in prison is necessary in the case of violent offenders or psychopaths who may not be capable of controlling their and therefore the public needs protecting.

To punish and prevent recidivism:

This is essentially a behavioursit approach to dealing with offender behaviour. The principle is that punishment decreased the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated.

Retribution:

The offender should be seen to pay in some way for the crime they have committed, as a sense of justice. Paying a fine is unsufficient.

Rehabiliation:

Having a person in prison may provide them with the best opportunity to undergo therapy as they have fewer distractions and there can be incentives for particiaption.

De-individualisation:

The stanford prison study illistrates how prison and guard uniforms may lead to a loss of individual indentify. This is associated with an increased level of aggression.

Depression, self harm and suicide:

Offenders entering prison may initially feel quite anxious about the new environment and hopeless about their future due to a lack of control.

Overcrowding and a lack of privacy:

25% of prisoners are in overcrowded accomadation. This has a psychological impact on the state of the prisoners. Calhoun used rats to show how overcrowding lead to increased aggression, stress, hypersexuality and increased physical illness.

Effective?

High rates of recidivism suggests that for at least 50% of prisoners, punishment doesn't work. According to the behaviourst approach, punishment is effective if it happens immediatley which does not happen in the case of custodial sentencing. Instead an offender may see the punishment for being caught rather than for the offending. Thus what is actually being learnt is avoiding getting caught. Hence, it could be argued that custodial sentencing is not an effective method to deal with offender behaviour, due to recidivism rates being so high.

It has been argued that prisons increase the likelyhood of re-offending rather than decreasing it. According to differential association theory this is because offender behaviour is increased with frequency and association with other offenders. This both effects the individuals attitudes towards crime it comes the norm and provides opportunites for learning how to become more successful at committing a crime.

Appropriate?

A custodial sentencing may be a more suitable approach with some offenders than others. Walker et al found that length of sentencing made very little difference to habitual offenders who were jsut as likely to reoffend no matter what the length of their sentence. Rates of recidivism vary dependant on age and type of crime. Younger people are more likely to reoffend for minor crimes like theft than crimes such as sexual offences. Therefore, sentencing should be targetted in different ways with different groups of offenders to ensure it is the most appropriate method.

Custodial sentencing is an opportunity to provide rehabilitation for individials so they can lead an improved, crime free life when back in society. Many prisoners access education and training whilst in prison increasing the possibility of emploment upon release. Anger managment programmes are also put in place so offenders have an insight into their behaviour and reduces recidivism. Therefore, suggesting custodial sentencing is a worthwhile experience if the prison has access to these facilities.