Penality

Penality

1. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS)- an executive agency of the ministry of justice, two bodies remain distinct but have a strong unity of purpose: to protect the public and reduce offending (HM prison service/ probation service)

   • there are more offenders serving their sentences in the community than in custody.

2. what is prison for?

   • Reductivist (consequentialist) (utilitarian justifications): forward looking, punishment is justified because it has good consequences; crime reduction via deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, punishment as a means to an end, bases punishment on the forward- looking goal of preventing future crime, it seeks to justify punishment by its alleged future consequences- is not a rights based theory. (links to rational choice model)
     • less eligibility: "expectation that life in prison should be worse than the life for the lowest class of free individuals" (Morgan 2007); "people go to prison as punishment not for punishment" (Scott, 2007)
     • reform/ rehabilitation, (taking away desire to re-offend) treatment for something akin to illness, incompatible with punishment? does reform justify punishment? Can prisons really reform criminals and stop them from reoffending? Positivism views criminal behaviour not as freely willed action, as a symptom of some kind of mental illness which should not be punished but 'treated' like an illness.
       • optimism about reforming offenders has often led to an extended use of imprisonment, with incarceration being see not so much as retributive or deterrent punishment but as an opportunity to provide effective reformative training and treatment. Rayner and Robinson (2009) rehabilitation conceptually divorced from punishment- resettlement even understood as a process for or undoing the harmful effects of punishment/ imprisonment
     • the "nothing works" era- collapse of the rehabilitative ideal (Martinson 1974); resettlement revival/ revolution, assist rather than to cure> shift towards evidence plus facilitated change; reform= a reductivist aim within a system of punishment. This is a more modest approach and is dependent on the offender's engagement and agency; language and shift shows general accpetance that 'prison does not work' in reforming offenders, but reform remains a reductivist sim in which it may well be right to pursue within a system of punishment- provided we can find some other general justification.
       • Gov statistics between 2000 and 2009 show that reoffending rates have stayed fairly stable for prison leavers (between 16 and 17%)
       • The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Kenneth Clarke, argued against the 'victorian approach' of 'just banging up more and more people for longer without actively seeking to change them'.
       • Current Lord Chancellor and sec of state for justice, Chris Grayling: "prison should not be a place where convicts can fritter away hours on end watching satellite TV in their cells" "Transforming rehabilitation will help to ensure that all of those sentenced to prison... are properly punished whilst being supported to turn their backs on crime for good- meaning lower crime, fewer victims and safer communities"
         • wants prisoners to work harder for their privileges (IEP scheme): to encourage responsible behaviour by prisoners; to encourage effort and achievement in work and other constructive activity by prisoners; to encourage sentenced prisoners to engage in sentence planning and benefit from activities designed to reduce reoffending; to create a more disciplined, better controlled and safer environment for prisoners and staff
           • Prisoners who received visits have significantly lower reoffending rate (52%) than prisoners who received no visits at all (70%)
   • Retributivist justifications: backward looking, punishment is justified because it is deserved (whatever the consequences); tariff- just deserts. (rights based)
     • retributivism advocates what is known as a tariff, a set of punishments of varying severity which are matched to crimes of differing seriousness: minor punishments for minor crimes and major punishments for more severe crimes, the punishment should fit the crime. The idea that both victim and criminal have rights, offenders have the right to go free once they have paid their debt to society; the court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence.
   • Incapacitation: Michael Howard argued that 'prison ensures we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists', one of the few valid arguments for capital punishment. But lesser penalties can have some incapacitatory effects, e.g. disqualification from driving (sentence may be being increased for drivers who kill someone whilst disqualified)
     • However, incapacitation can have other consequences as crimes can occur in prisons, e.g. the murder of Asian prisoner Zahid Mubarek in 2000 after being beaten to death with a chair leg by racist cell mate in their cell.

3. high levels of prisoners are socially disadvantaged before entering prison, few education opportunities, family issues, mental health problems (70% women, 70%male prisoners). Incarceration may be an opportunity to provide effective reformative training and treatment, drug treatments, mental health treatment, educated or work skills given, prison can be used as a way of dealing with social problems

4. Marxist perspective (Nills Christie) an industry has arisen to manage crime, crime control has come to dominate the economic structure by absorbing the unemployed, theory highlights that economic imperatives can and do still play no part in penal developments

   • Durkheim: prison as a 'social institution'- the expressive element of imprisonment, emotional rather than a rational approach, a symbolic assurance to an anxious public, punishment is seen to have an important role in maintaining social order and the existence of society

5. 2000, CJ and Court Services Act= community rehab order and community punishment order, 2003 CJA = community order/ generic community sentence; enhance demanding nature of community sentences

6. toughening of community sentences: a full 5 day week of hard work and job seeking; maximum length of curfew from 12 to 16 hours a day, for duration of 6 to 12 months; courts power to ban offenders from foreign travel; strengthening financial penalties; GPS monitoring. community sentences are now more about containing the offender and enforcing order

7. However... a preoccupation with image? Characterising community sentences as a 'soft' option and prison as a 'hard' option detracts from the serious debate about the effectiveness of sentences and their ability to reduce reoffending, community sentences posses the potential to be more effective in reducing reoffending than prison