Sentencing and the allure of imprisonment: why rehabilitation should not be a ground for custodial sentencing (original) (raw)
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2015
In post-referendum Scotland it is widely suggested that this may be a moment to move away from Scotland’s relatively heavy use of imprisonment. In its efforts to reduce radically the prison population there seems to be real intent by the Scottish Government to shift the emphasis from prison to community penalties. To try to achieve this, the Government has deemed it necessary first to restrict mandatory community support for and supervision of long term prisoners - a move which could make the overall task more difficult. Currently the major tool in the Government’s reform box seems to be the extension of the presumption against ‘ineffective’ and ‘unnecessary’ short custodial sentences. But will such an extension work? This paper argues that the extension of the presumption is likely to have little impact by itself. Additional options include: relinquishing the policy of ‘custody as a last resort’ and instead making other penalties ‘the ultimate sanction’ (including for breach); crea...
ejprob.ro
This article seeks to explain the reasons for the sharp rise in prison recall rates in Scotland. It argues that recall practices need to be understood not as a technical corner of the justice system, but as part of a wider analysis of the politics of sentencing and release policy. While there are sound reasons for a policy of 'early release' (incentivizing good behavior and enabling the resettlement of prisoners), in practice early release has increasingly been used as a tool to try to limit the growth in the custodial population. Unable to control prison numbers through the 'front door' (judicial sentencing and bail/remand), successive governments have increasingly relied on early release as a surreptitious way of, in effect, re-sentencing prisoners. We argue that this political strategy is ultimately self-defeating, not least in feeding public cynicism about the penal system and community supervision in particular. This article reviews the changing legislative, policy and practice landscape of the regulation of non-compliance and recall practice, and draws on the desistance literature to illustrate how offender-supervisor relationships can be undermined by recall policies which threaten the legitimacy of both the supervisory relationship and the conditions of supervision orders.
Punishment and rehabilitation – Uneasy bedfellows under section 44 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2017
Over the last 25 years, community sentences have evolved significantly. However, throughout this period there has been a consistent theme of rehabilitation underpinning them. Section 44 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 has set out, the author argues, to alter this by requiring that a punitive element is attached to a Community Order given under s177 Criminal Justice Act 2003 unless to do so would be 'unjust in all the circumstances'. Considering the types of offenders for whom community penalties have been shown to be particularly useful in reducing recidivism, and the potentially high threshold of 'unjust in all the circumstances', it is argued that this requirement will compromise the strengths previously exhibited by Community Orders and considers why such a requirement may have been added.
Desistance, Rehabilitation and Correctionalism: Developments and Prospects in Scotland
The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2004
This article argues that desistance research should provoke a reconsideration of the essential character of interventions with adults involved in offending behaviour. It begins by discussing broad accounts of the characteristics of late-modern penal systems as the background to an exploration of current developments in probation policy and practice. In particular, the discussion develops some contrasts between 'welfarist rehabilitation' and 'correctional treatment' as competing (but inadequate) paradigms for probation practice. In the context of these contrasts, the situation of criminal justice social work in post-devolution Scotland receives particular attention. Possible implications for practice of some important desistance studies are then developed, in order to stimulate discussion and debate about the extent to which desistance research might challenge the correctionalism that is emerging in probation policy and practice in the UK. In the conclusion, bearing in mind proposed organisational changes on both sides of the border that might tend towards advancing correctionalism, the prospects for more constructive developments in Scotland are considered in the light of emerging evidence about the views of frontline workers and in the light of existing 'official' objectives for criminal justice social work.
Sentencing and penal practices : Is Scotland losing its distinctiveness?
2010
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