psychlotron.org.uk Why does society punish offenders?
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Why does society punish offenders?
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• Retribution• Reform• Deterrence
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Today’s session
You are learning about... You are learning to...• Judicial sanctions for
offending (imprisonment & non-custodial sentencing)
• Use research to evaluate judicial sanctions
• Use psychological principles to explain effects on behaviour
• Distinguish between psychological and common-sense explanations of behaviour
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• Has our society ‘gone soft’ on crime?
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Prison population in England & Wales
Source: Morgan (2002)
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Prison population in England & Wales
• There are 140 people in prison per 100,000 population in E & W.– 50% higher than France, Germany & Italy– Double rate of most Scandinavian countries– Substantially lower than US (700+/100,000)
• The prison population has grown steadily since 1946– Doubled since 1991– Length of sentence has also been increasing
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Purposes of prison
• Morgan (2002) lists three purposes:– Custody– Coercion– Punishment
• Only the punishment function interests us.– Recidivism = return to criminal activities following
judicial punishment– Recidivism rate is a measure of the effectiveness
of punishment
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• In 1993, the Home Secretary Michael Howard insisted, ‘prison works’. Was he right?
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• Common sense would suggest that prison should reduce future offending. So why doesn’t it?
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Why doesn’t prison work?
• Offending is not always a rational choice• Prison does not adhere to known principles of
learning. Punishment should be:– Probable– Prompt– Aversive
• How might imprisonment fail to meet these criteria?
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• Probable– Many crimes are never solved, so punishment unlikely
• Prompt– Long delay between offending and eventual
imprisonment• Aversive– Not necessarily, given circumstances of many
offenders• Do offenders learn not to offend or not to get
caught?
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• Hollin (1992) suggests that, in the face of the failure of imprisonment to reform offenders, we have a choice between making prisons even more unpleasant and rethinking the whole idea. Which do you favour and why?
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Non-custodial sentencing
• How, besides imprisonment, does our judicial system respond to offenders?– Admonishment (e.g. police caution)– Fines– Probation (community rehabilitation order)– Reparation & restitution (e.g. community
punishment order)
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• In your groups:– Consider the possible advantages and
disadvantages of the sentence you are assigned, relative to imprisonment
– Think about: (1) potential to reform the offender; (2) additional effects on the offender/society; (3) economic implications
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Fines
• Walker & Farrington (1981): lower recidivism than probation or suspended prison sentence
• Feldman (1993) lower reconvictions than the alternatives for first offences
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Probation
• Oldfield (1996): prison – 63% recidivism; probation – 41% recidivism
• Roshier (1995): prison 64%; probation 41%
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Reparation & restitution
• Schneider (1986): restitution marginally more effective than alternatives, but depends on programme and community
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General issues
• Offenders take little account of judicial sanctions when weighing up costs and benefits of offending (McDonald, 1989)
• Offenders are not randomly assigned to sentences; differences in recidivism may be due to judicial risk assessment
• In terms of recidivism, non-custodial sentences are no worse than imprisonment and can be much better
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