Overview of Session

1
Overview of Session

• What is Punishment?
• Sentencing Policy
• Prison what is it for?

2
Introduction

• In a perfect world there would be no crime
• A good world would have effective crime
  prevention programmes
• In the world we live there are
• People who commit crimes
• People who are victims of crime
• A Criminal Justice system that produces a large
  number of criminals

3
What is Punishment?

• In relation to Criminal Behaviour
• Penalties authorised by the state
• Inflicted by those who work for the state
• On those who are judged to be guilty of an
  offence
• How offenders are punished changes over time and
  is culturally specific

4
Historical

• 18th century Europe punishment appears arbitrary
  and harshly retributive
• No due process of law
• Guilty were as likely to go unpunished as the
  innocent punished
• Cavadino Dignan (1997) state the system was
  unjust, inhumane and irrational

5
Damien (1757)

• ....on a scaffold that will be erected there,
  the flesh will be torn from his breasts, arms,
  thighs and calves with red-hot pincers, his right
  hand, holding the knife with which he committed
  the said parricide, burnt with sulphur, and, on
  those places where the flesh will be torn away,
  poured moulten lead, boiling oil, burning resin,
  wax and sulphur melted together and then his body
  drawn and quartered by four horses and his limbs
  and body consumed by fire, reduced to ashes and
  his ashes thrown to the winds (p3)
•  

6
Treatment Model

• 1920s this model was advocated
• Criminal Behaviour was not the result of
  free-will but a symptom to be treated not
  punished
• HMP Grendon,a therapeutic prison, was opened in
  1962
• However, this model was coming under attack

7
Sentencing Policy

• 2001 Report of the Sentencing Review
• 2002 White Paper Justice for All
• Detailed sentencing guidelines scheme
• New sentencing options
• Recommendations to improve public knowledge of
  sentencing
• Roberts (2002) Act attempts to reconcile
  conflicting sentencing philosophies of
  Utilitarianism and Desert impossible

8
Sentencing Policy cont..

• Utilitarianism punishment is morally right as
  long as the harm it prevents is greater than the
  harm inflicted on the offender (deterrence)
• Desert the punishment must fit the crime and
  can only be given for offences committed, not
  what might be in the future

9
Blunkett (2001)

• sentencing should send a clear message that the
  more you offend, the greater the punishment you
  can expect

10
Three Principles

• The severity of the punishment should reflect the
  seriousness of the offence and the offenders
  criminal history
• The seriousness of the offence should reflect its
  degree of harmfulness.and the offenders
  culpability in committing the offence
• In considering the offenders history, the
  severity of the sentence should increase to
  reflect previous convictions, taking into account
  how relevant they were.
• (Home Office, 2001 13)

11
Prison

• At 30/9/02 there were 72,315 people in prison in
  the UK
• Prison primarily thought of as a punishment,
  other functions
• Retribution
• Deterrence
• Containment
• rehabilitation

12
What is prison for?

• Treatment model inmates encouraged to lead
  good and useful lives
• Shifted to humane containment a period in
  which role of prisons was in a state of ambiguity
• Strangeways riots of April 1990 ended state of
  ambiguity

13
Woolf Tumin

• Prisons should prepare people for their return
  to society
• NOT a return to treatment model but the prison
  and probation service should work together to
  achieve the common objective of helping offenders
  to lead law abiding lives
• Prisoners should have the opportunity of training

14
However.

• 1993 Michael Howard claimed that prison works
  not in terms of rehabilitation but in terms of
• Incapacitation
• Deterrence
• Punitive loss of freedom
• But not all is lost

15
Rights-Based Model

• Those working in prison/probation now facilitate
  activities to allow prisoners to address problems
  associated with offending behaviour
• Opportunities for therapeutic, educational and
  vocational training
• Problems when prisons are overcrowded