Punishment in the Community

Community sanctions – 

• supervised/probation
• unpaid work, 
• curfew
• programmes
• treatment.

• “Mass supervision” – increase in scale and intensity.
• “Mass Incarceraton” – neglect of supervision.

• Probation and parole – alternative to incarceration.
• Probation – instead of jail time. 
• Parole – early release from prison. 
• Demise of this? – “Nothing works” - Robert Martinson (1974) – treatment of offenders failed to have any change on reoffending rates.
• “What works” – looking at what does work for reducing reoffending. – looking at underlying causes of crime, making sure the cost of offending outweighs the benefits and making reoffending more difficult by taking away any opportunity.
• There was resistance in scotland – led to introduction of community payback orders.

• Higher levels of insecurity, crime and punishment more politicised and more punitive policies to show state power (Garland, 1996).
• Problem for the public – seen as too soft, more focus on evidence-base and assessing risk of people.

• Conditional Discharge
• Fine
• Compensation
• Unpaid work
• Rehab
• Curfew

• This is new punitiveness and new penology.
• Opportunity to demonstrate can avoid further offending
• Held accountable through supervision.
• Supervision involves monitoring with encouragement and assistance (help as well as supervision. Supervisors motivate and persuade).
• Not purely punitive (like a fine).

Foucault 

• Corporal to Carceral punishment

Skull

• Decarceration – removing people from prisons to mental institutions – cost saving but spending has increased and applies more to mental health.

Cohen 

• Dispersal of discipline – Foucault argues that this has now dispersed through society, penetrating every institution to reach every individual.
• Net widening – more people controlled by the justice system – the growth of mass incarceration has neglected mass supervision.

Foucault 

• Corporal to Carceral punishment

Skull

• Decarceration – removing people from prisons to mental institutions – cost saving but spending has increased and applies more to mental health.

Cohen 

• Dispersal of discipline – Foucault argues that this has now dispersed through society, penetrating every institution to reach every individual.
• Net widening – more people controlled by the justice system – the growth of mass incarceration has neglected mass supervision.

• Less populist approach to punishment
• Highest imprisonment rates.
• More interested in reducing reoffending, giving individual support to prisoners and increasing public confidence.

• Through community payback orders – constructive way to repair harms caused by crime, making good to the victim or community.
• Scottish prison commission – one of the best ways to pay back is to turn their live around.
• Scotland v England – constructive punishment to help stop reoffending v merely punitive punishment – no support to offenders to help them stop reoffending. – (Duff, 2011).

• Community Unpaid Work
• Home detention curfews.
• Electronic Monitoring (tags).

• Interventions should be based on offenders understanding of their individual change process and how experts can help with that rather than fitting offenders with already made interventions – base it on their needs.
• Focuses on networks and hooks in peoples lives that may stop them from reoffending – it is important to be able to have the opportunity to desist, offenders need to be motivated, be ready to change.
• This wont happen quickly – there is a zig-zag process – many offenders may slip back into old habits and begin offending again and have relapses, it is important to not give up on this.
• These interventions are not concerned solely with the prevention of further offending – want to be able to address the harms by encouraging offenders to make good through community service.

• Barry (2007) - Offenders want to have trust in the community punishments.
• Want people to listen to them and not judge them, want actvities to relives boredom. – meet individual needs.

• Welfarist ethos survives to a greater degree in Scotland than elsewhere in UK.
• Purposes of community sentences (shifts over time).