Forensics L9-12 Flashcards
(33 cards)
1
Q
What is custodial sentencing?
A
- involves a convicted offender spending time in prison or another closed institution
- such as a young offenders institute or psychiatric hospital
2
Q
What are the aims of prison?
A
- deterrence
- incapacitation
- retribution
- rehabilitation
3
Q
What is deterrence as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- unpleasant prison experience is designed to deter an individual from engaging in offending behaviour in the future
- deterrence works on two levels
- 1, general deterrence aims to send a broad message to members of a society that crime will not be tolerated
- 2, individual deterrence should prevent the individual from repeating the same crime
4
Q
What is incapacitation as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- offender is taken out of society to prevent them from reoffending as a means of protecting the public
- need for incapacitation depends upon the severity of the offence and the nature
of the offender
5
Q
What is retribution as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- society is enacting revenge for the crime by making the offender suffer
- the level of suffering should be proportionate to the crime
6
Q
What is rehabilitation as an aim of custodial sentencing?
A
- upon release, prisoners should be better adjusted and ready to take their place in society
- prison should provide opportunities to
develop skills, receive training or to access treatment programs for addiction - as well as receive counselling and have an opportunity to reflect on their crime
7
Q
What are the psychological effects of custodial sentencing?
A
- psychological disorders
- institutionalisation
- brutalisation
- labelling
8
Q
What is meant by psychological disorders as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prisons have higher incidences of mental
illnesses such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, and low self- esteem - study by the Prison Reform Trust (2014) found that 25% of women and 15% of men in prison reported symptoms of psychosis
- the oppressive prison regime can trigger psychological disorders
- Zimbardo’s ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’ demonstrated the psychological effects of imprisonment
9
Q
What is meant by institutionalisation as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- spending time in prison leads to a lack of autonomy
- involves conformity to the role of prisoner and a dependency on prison culture
10
Q
What is meant by brutalisation as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prison acts as a school for crime and reinforces criminal lifestyle and criminal norms
- leads to high recidivism (tendency to reoffend), 70% of young
offenders re-offend within two years
11
Q
What is meant by labelling as a psychological effect of custodial sentencing?
A
- prisoners often lose touch with previous social contacts and find it difficult to gain employment
- as they are labelled as a criminal
- will all contribute to an increased likelihood of recidivism, tendency to reoffend
12
Q
Custodial sentencing, +ve evaluation:
A
- shows that justice has been done and
limits the danger to the public - many prisoners access education and training whilst in prison
- increasing the chance they will find employment upon release
- also, treatment programmes, such as anger management therapy and social skills training may help offenders modify their behaviour and so avoid reoffending
13
Q
Custodial sentencing, -ve evaluation:
A
- suicide rates are 15% higher in the prison population than they are in the
general population - but it is difficult to demonstrate that psychological disorders are caused by imprisonment
- prisoners with psychiatric conditions may
very well have had problems before they were institutionalised
= courts need to be selective about who they send to prison, 8–10% of criminals commit 50% of all crimes
= custodial sentencing is best reserved for these repeat offenders - crime prevention is more effective than custodial sentencing as it avoids labelling a person as a criminal and also avoids the
negative consequences of prison - alternative sentences, such as community
service, are more effective for low-risk offenders because they can keep their
social contacts and their job
= David and Raymond completed a review of custodial sentencing
= concluded that government ministers often exaggerate the benefits of prison in order to appear tough on crime
= suggested that, in reality, prison does little to deter or rehabilitate offenders
= it is done to appease the public or as
an act of retribution
14
Q
What is behaviour modification?
A
- behavioural therapy which uses operant conditioning
techniques to encourage positive behaviours
15
Q
What is token economy?
A
- form of behaviour modification sometimes used by criminal justice system
16
Q
How does token economy work?
A
- uses positive reinforcement in the form of secondary reinforcers
- secondary reinforcers (tokens) are accrued when a person displays desirable behaviours.
- desirable behaviour in prison is likely to include avoiding
conflict, following prison rules, keeping your cell orderly etc - tokens can then be exchanged for primary reinforcers (intrinsic reward)
- the rewards that tokens can be exchanged for vary from prison to prison, they may include extra phone calls, extra visits, special food etc
17
Q
What is brought to attention of prisoners when it comes to token economy?
A
- desirable behaviour and available rewards are made clear to the prisoners before they start the programme
- it is also emphasised that non-compliance or disobedience will result in the tokens being withheld, negative punishment
18
Q
What is done with the behaviour desired for token economy?
A
- the desirable behaviour is
identified - e.g. avoiding conflict
- then broken down into smaller steps, called increments
- e.g. waiting in line at mealtimes, not shouting at other prisoners etc
19
Q
How are other individuals involved in token economy?
A
- all those who come into contact with the offender must follow the same regime of selective reinforcement
- a particular prisoner is rewarded for particular
actions - whole programme is overseen by a prison official who is able to monitor the programme’s effectiveness on the management of the prison as a whole, as well as on the behaviour of individual offenders
20
Q
Behaviour modification TE, +ve evaluation:
A
- easy to administer
- it does not require expert professionals or specialised equipment
- it can be implemented by virtually anyone in the prison
- token economy is also cost-effective and easy to follow once the method of reinforcement has been established
21
Q
Behaviour modification TE, -ve evaluation:
A
- doesn’t work if staff are not consistent
- sometimes lack of appropriate training or high staff turnover make consistency problematic
= can only be used in controlled environment
= any positive behavioural change that occurs while the prisoner is incarcerated are
quickly lost once the prisoner is released
= is because law-abiding behaviour is not always reinforced on the outside and the rewards that result from
breaking the law may be powerful
= could also be because offenders just ‘playing along’ with the scheme to get the rewards
= and not really learning to change their behaviour - critics of token economy have suggested that it is unethical
- in some prisons participation in the scheme is obligatory
- although ultimately the offender can decide whether or not to obey the rules or break them
- the withdrawal of privileges such as exercise and contact with loved ones can be physically and psychologically harmful
= behaviour modification only deals with surface behaviour
= other treatments go deeper and require offenders to reflect on the cause of their offending
= and take responsibility for their rehabilitation
22
Q
What is anger management?
A
- form of cognitive behavioural therapy
- has a three stage approach
- cognitive preparation
- skill acquisition
- application practice
23
Q
What is cognitive preparation, AM?
A
- offender learns to identify the cues for their anger
- e.g. specific contexts or comments
- they reflect on events in the
past when they became angry - consider if the way that they
interpreted those events was rational - therapist’s role is to help the
offender redefine the situation as non-threatening - e.g. an offender might interpret someone looking at them as threatening
- but in actual fact the person ‘looking’ at them was just lost in thought
24
Q
What is skill acquisition, AM?
A
- offender learns skills to manage their own behaviour in anger-provoking situations
- techniques could be cognitive, positive self-talk to encourage calmness
- behavioural, assertiveness
training to communicate more effectively - or physiological, methods of
relaxation and meditation
25
What is application practice, AM?
- offender has role-play opportunities to practice new skills and receive feedback
- they could role-play scenarios
which in the past led to anger/violence
- offender must take this
seriously and see the scenario as real
- the therapist has to be brave
and ‘wind up’ the offender
- successful negotiation of the role play will be met with positive reinforcement from the therapist
26
Anger management, +ve evaluation:
- multidisciplinary approach
- cognitive, behavioural and
social elements are included
- acknowledges that offending is a complex social and psychological behaviour
- and any attempt to address it must include these different elements
= unlike behaviour modification, anger management tries to get to the root cause of offending behaviour
= the thought processes that lead to anger/violence
= rather than focusing on superficial surface behaviour
27
Anger management, -ve evaluation:
- assumption that anger causes offending may be false
- many crimes, such as financial crime, are not motivated by anger
- even murder is not always
motivated by anger
- Harold Shipman murdered over 215 of his patients during
his time working as a GP
- his motivation was to alleviate their suffering
= programmes are expensive to run as they require a highly
trained specialist who is used to dealing with violent offenders
= many prisons do not have the resources to run such programmes
- success of anger management is based on the commitment of those who participate
- this is a problem if patients are uncooperative or apathetic
28
What is restorative justice?
- process of managed collaboration between the offender and the victim
- based on the principles of healing and empowerment
- trained mediator facilitates a meeting between the offender and the victim
- victim given the opportunity to confront the offender and explain how the crime affected them
- offender is confronted with the consequences of their
actions, including the emotional distress they have caused the victim
29
What are the key features of restorative justice features?
quite diverse but all share these key things
- focus on acceptance of responsibility and positive change for offenders, less emphasis on punishment
- not restricted to courtrooms, survivors (seen as more empowering than ‘victims’) and offenders meet face-to-face in a non-courtroom setting
- active rather than passive involvement of all parties in the process
- focus on positive outcomes for survivors and offenders
30
What may occur in some variations of restorative justice/
- offenders mau make financial restitution for the physical and emotional damage they have done
- offenders sometimes even repair damaged property themselves
30
What is restorative justice an alternative to?
- can function as an alternative to custodial sentences,
especially if the offender is young
- would be as an addition to community service
- or as an incentive to reduce an existing custodial sentence
31
Restorative justice, +ve evaluation:
- Shapland et al. conducted a government funded research project
- found that every £1 spent on restorative justice would save the criminal justice system £8 by reducing recidivism
- but because restorative justice
requires specialist and highly trained professionals it is very expensive and finding funding has proved challenging
32
Restorative justice, -ve evaluation:
- success of restorative justice relies on the offender showing remorse
- some offenders might sign up for the scheme to avoid prison, or reduce their sentence
- rather than from a genuine willingness to change
- could explain the high dropout rates in restorative justice
- offenders often change their
mind because they were not committed to the process in the first place
= victims may have an ulterior motive for agreeing to take part in restorative justice
= they may simply want to seek revenge
- organisation ‘Women’s Aid’ has called for an end to the use of restorative justice in domestic abuse cases
- as offender can exploit this
opportunity to convince the victim to take them back
- abusers often have a lot of power over their victims
- so a meeting between them could be dangerous
= unpopular with the general public because it is regarded
as a ‘soft option’
= means politicians are unwilling to support it as they want to please the electorate by seeming ‘tough on crime’
