Centenial Celebration

Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.

Date: November 22, 2024 Fri

Time: 11:46 am

Results for prison construction (u.k.)

1 results found

Author: Farrall, Stephen

Title: Intelligent Justice: Balancing the effects of community sentences and custody

Summary: The paper draws on evidence from the United States, where research has shown that imprisoning a large number of people for longer periods causes crime to fall in the short term but rise in the long term when they are eventually released. Places where many people are jailed see a range of negative consequences, including increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and serious juvenile delinquency. This results in more people being imprisoned and creates a system 'that feeds upon itself', exacerbating the very social problems that led to increases in crime. The pamphlet states that prison's effect of deterring people from committing crime can be overestimated. The key factor which prevents most people from offending is how likely they are to be punished, rather than how severe the punishment is. Crime reduction caused by prison taking offenders out of the community can also be overestimated, the pamphlet adds. For example, evidence suggests that, in some cases, imprisoning one person creates a 'job vacancy' for another to take their place and commit offences. The paper illustrates that, by the Ministry of Justice's own admission, current data such as reconviction statistics do not reliably measure the true impact of probation supervision and offender management programmes. This has important ramifications for the government's desire to use payment by results in prisons and probation. Finally, the pamphlet offers suggestions on how people who have committed crime should be reintegrated into society. Emphasising the importance of redemption, the paper says that it is usually more effective - and cheaper - to get people to 'buy into' behaviour rather than compel or cajole or supervise them into it.

Details: London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2014. 22p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 27, 2014 at: https://d19ylpo4aovc7m.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/howard_league/user/online_publications/Intelligent_Justice.pdf

Year: 2014

Country: United Kingdom

URL: https://d19ylpo4aovc7m.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/howard_league/user/online_publications/Intelligent_Justice.pdf

Shelf Number: 133450

Keywords:
Criminal Justice Reform
Deterrence
Prison Construction (U.K.)
Prison Reform
Punishment