Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders - Essay Example

Name: Institution: Title: Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders Tutor: Course : Date: Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders Introduction There are increased criminal cases across the world with most people engaging themselves in activities which are not accepted by the laws and constitutions. Currently there are some essential reforms considered by the government of UK to the criminal justice system. These reforms are important because they work towards reducing crime rates although they are leading to high populations in the prisons hence the criminals may not be well rehabilitated because of the little attention accorded to each. Some do not change their behaviors even after being imprisoned. To break the destructive cycle of the crimes committed in today’s societies, the government is planning on the implementation of an effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of the offenders. This study considers some of the reforms proposed by the Ministry of Justice and forwarded to the Parliament in year 2010. Criminology problems and the proposals of the reforms The problem of criminology is turning out to be the most common across all nations of the world. However, the authority is working hard to find solutions to the problems and according to the recent reports; there is a fall in the rates of crimes against individuals and households. The rate is still high with negative impacts in the development or the economic status with the costs of the crime in the society remaining too high. In 2003, it was estimated at £36.2 billion due to establishment of criminal courts and other offender management services (Ministry of Justice, 2010). There are many problems which are resulting to the challenges in the efforts to fight for decline in the crime rates. All the societies expect that the criminals be effectively punished to avoid a repetition their mistakes. However this is dominated by stiff increase in the population of the prisons with less effort to tackle reoffending. This has doubled since 1993 and still expected to continue; a scheme is even introduced which allows the prisoners to be released earlier than expected with the intention of relieving the pressure on the estates of the prison. This is mostly done through presidential pardon or the prisoners are allowed to be released on board. The condition of the life inside the cells and prisons has increased and to some individuals it is less similar to that of a free man or even better. This is because of the facilities which are provided and the opportunities that they easily access. The prisoners are free to access the social amenities like television and other social resources, in some nations the prisoners are also provided with good food than they could afford if they were left to care for themselves. The recent report shows that most of the criminals resume their life of crime after release with 50% of them reoffending within a year. This because many of these prisoners are locked up for a very short time with the intention of rehabilitating them yet the officers in charge are not enough to attend to each individual and the activities they undertake are not enough to change their behaviour or perception (Siegel, 2010). Everyone is talking of globalization and considering all ways of living a globalised life. This is seen as one of eth main problem affecting the increase in the rate of crimes in our societies. There are many activities which are legalized in some of the societies and not allowed in others thus those practicing them are seen as law breakers and can end up being imprisoned. Individuals and groups copy nature, culture and beliefs of the others across diverse parts of the world without taking time to reflect of the expectations or regulations of the law abiding them. The enforcers of law are forced to hold them as criminals. This process although has some positive impacts in the advancement of some factors like economic and political development as members of the developing nations copy the activities of the developed nations thus improving their activities of making money as well as new and more effective leadership styles (Ministry of Justice, 2010). Schools of thought There are many and different schools of thought which have been developed to describe crime and some concepts of law relating to them. Although these schools are a number of schools of thoughts on criminological since history; in most of the parts the new schools are revitalization of the formers and not as a competing on their own point of view. Majority of the criminologists belong to the Chicago school although there are those that feel sub-cultural school offer a better explanation of their work. The considered school includes: Classical School This school was formed in the 17th century and its arguments are based on the philosophy of utilitarian. The philosophers argues that : each member is free to choose how to act, punishment deters people from committing crimes because of the penalties thus the severity of the punishment accorded to the criminals should be proportionate to the severity of the crime committed. They also argued that the more serious the punishment is, the more effective it is to deter the behaviour of the criminals. The school was developed the same time as the major reforms in penology and prisons which were formed as a way of punishing the criminals. Other related reforms of the time included: the French Revolution and improvement of the legal systems in US (Newburn, 2007). Positivist school This argues that the behaviour of the criminals is enhanced by internal and external factors which are outside the control of an individual. It used a scientific method which studied human behaviour. Its segments includes: psychological, biological and social positivism. Italian school An Italian doctor of prison-Cesare Lombroso was a founder of biological positivism and Italian school of criminology. He considered a scientific approach to insist the empirical evidence while studying crime; he also argued that physiological traits like measuring the bones of the cheek; hairline and so on would indicate tendencies of crime. Other criminologists are rejecting Lombroso’s theory of biological because he does not use control groups (Carrabine & Lee, 2009). Lacassagne School This theory rejected that of Lombroso to strain on the importance of social factors. He argues that the behaviour of people is highly influenced by the social environment on the brain of the individual. He criticized the prisons for lack of efficiency and insisted on the responsibilities of the society towards the spread of crime rates and voluntarism of political as a solution of the crimes. Because of this, he campaigns for harsh penalties for the criminals, for example, he supported the law on the colonies of penal and opposed the abolition of the penalty of death. Another British psychologist argued that some psychological aspects like neuroticism and extraversion can make a person likely to commit crime. Chicago School This school is considered as the current and the most preferred by many criminologists. It is the work of many of the urban sociologists in the University of Chicago. They preferred an approach of social ecology in the study of cities; the sociologists assumed that the urban neighborhood often experience some breakdown in their social structure and institutions like families and school caused by disorganization of their social status thus they are not able to control the behaviour of the people thus children grow up with unexpected or unusual behaviour. Other sociologists suggested that people learn criminal behaviour from the older ones (Newburn, 2007). Sociological positivism This theory assumes that social factors like poverty, belonging to subcultures and limited education can influence people to committing crime. In support of the information Adolphe Quetelet used data and statistics to determine the relationship between social factors and crime. He discovered that gender, age, poverty, consumption of alcohol and education were some of the important factors associated with occurrence of crime. Rawson W. Rawson suggested a link between the density of the population and the rate of the crime and concluded that densely populated areas like cities create a conducive environment for the crimes. Émile Durkheim considered crime to be an inevitable factor of society having uneven distribution of wealth, resources and other differences among the people. Theories of crime There are many theoretical perspectives which are applied in criminology, these include: functionalism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, internationalism, system, econometrics and postmodernism (Vito, Maahs & Holmes, 2006). Social disorganization (neighborhoods) This theory argues that disorganization in the society influence the occurrence of the crimes because of the less ability to control the behaviour of the members because of eth divergence of the culture. It assumes that neighborhood overwhelmed by poverty and deprivation of the economy is prone to high rates of population turnover and heterogeneity. With high turnover, the informal structure of the society mostly fails to develop thus making it difficult to maintain order in a community. Social structure theory The theory is applicable to a number of approaches in criminology and sociology in the perspective of structural conflict in sociology of crime. Strain theory (social class) This theory proposes that mainstream culture is saturated with the opportunity dreams, freedom and prosperity. On a different perspective, the theorist also argued that criminology means a dichotomy between the expectations of the society on its citizens and what they can actually achieve. Thus if the opportunities of the social structure are unequal therefore preventing the majority from realizing their dreams hence some will be tempted to into the illegitimated ways-crime so as to realize it. Others retreat into the deviant subcultures like robbery (O'Brien & Yar, 2008). Sub cultural theory This focuses on the small cultural groups which fragment away from the mainstream so as to form values and meanings of their own life. The different levels of social classes fight against the norms of other classes especially those above them, the youths from the poorest communities in which most of the opportunities are scarce are likely to adopt norms which best suit the condition of the area they are in, for example, toughness and disrespect of the authority as people struggle to get the scarce opportunities. These youths are exposed to crimes easily than those in differing parts of the world. The theorists focused more on the issue of social class in which some criminal activities were assumed to be imaginary solutions to solve the problem of differences in the social classes (Carrabine & Lee, 2009). Effective punishment of criminals According to most of the criminologists and law enforcers, the offenders should be punished and made pay the society that they offend for the harm they cause either to individual victims or communities at large. The compensations are based on two major factors: direct reparation to the individual victims, reparation to a group of victims or the entire community where appropriate. This severity of the punished should reflect on the seriousness of severity of the crime mostly determined by the effects or negative impacts it has on the affected victims. Most of the expected punishments like facing tough disciplines in the prisons are lacking in most of the current prisons and the local communities are not benefiting directly from hard work of the offenders. The reforms in the efforts to punish the offenders so as to change their behaviour are expected to end up in a better deal for the victims. This will encourage a greater use of the orders of compensation and enlargement of the surcharges of the victims such that the offenders suffer noticeable financial loss to the victims of their crime as they struggle to amend the crimes and harm they cause to the affected (Ministry of Justice, 2010). Key policy proposals for delivery of punishment The major policy is introduction and implementation of working prisons where the criminals are subjected to do hard work for a defined period of time. This depends on the severity of the crime committed and how fast an offender responds to the changes of environment and its culture; they are expected to work for a full working week or more. The prison environments are assumed to be places of highest level of discipline with many and differing rules and regulations which the offenders are expected to follow to the letter irrespective of their social aspects like social class, age, gender and experience. Community sentence is another policy for the formulation and implementation of punishment. These sentences are considered to be properly credible and punitive the offenders are made to freely offer services to the community like cleaning of the public facilities like schools, hospitals and administration offices. The existing community jobs should be protected and forwards to the courts for the criminals to be assigned and fully supervised to perfectly perform them. The offenders should not be left to have any freedom but should work under tough curfews and electronic tagging. The Prisoner’s Earnings Act should be implemented to require the prisoners to pay for the cost of the services to the victims. This can also enable officers in charge to support the funds of the victims by deducting from the earnings of the prisoners. The aim the tough punishment offered in the prisons is to ensure that the criminals do not repeat their crimes in future or completely change their behaviour for the best, thus it is assumed to be a rehabilitating process to restore the initial and good behaviour of the people (Ministry of Justice, 2010). Effectiveness of courts and offense management There are some evidences which are developed to provide the most suitable ways of delivering the goals and objectives of criminal justice system more effectively and efficiently. The main potentials of achievement includes: prevention, diversion, early intervention and resettlement. The system should be keen to discover occurrence of any problem at earliest stages so as to be able to handle the offenders before their behaviors are too notorious hence easily change them. The intervention considered should be planned to match with the personalities of the individual offender thus improving the knowledge on the most appropriate sequencing of the interventions from the simplest to the most complicated and this is best driven by the characteristics of the criminal hence determining the best intervention to change him (Walklate, 2005). The system of justice should make use of restorative justice and many other approaches to enable reparation of the individual victim or community. This should be done in a very formal way to ensure that both parties benefits and achieve the set objectives. The victim should benefit by getting the most appropriate amount of compensation equivalent to severity of the crime committed. The offender should also benefit by having his behaviour changed thus they are able to observe the laws governing them and be free like the ordinary people. Rehabilitating offenders to reduce crime This is the only way of ensuring or improving public safety and security. The number of the victims and community destruction rate is reduced by reforming the criminals to reduce their rate of reoffending. Prisons and other punishments implementing centers are put up to rehabilitate the criminals or have their initial behavior restored. The offenders subjected to any form or sentence, whether community sentence, community service or on release from the custody should be subjected to tough and well organized response from the police or other law implementing bodies, probation and other services (Beirne & Messerschmidt, 2000). The justice system is concern about a fundamental shift in the management of the offenders to ensure that the rehabilitating aims are achieved. Initially the justice systems were not focused on sufficiently aspects of sentences and the reforms are implemented to rebalance the systems to address such weaknesses by delivering effective punishments through the best ways. This is with the aim of convincing the offenders to turn their lives and consider the opportunity of addressing their behaviors full of crimes and the root causes. These offenders in criminal justice should be diverted to adapt the services which are most appropriate to them and development of the entire society. Key policy proposals of rehabilitating offenders The officers in charge like the police and others in the local services should consider taking an integrated approach in the management of the offenders. The interventions should reflect the rules stated in the constitution to ensure that the offenders are not over or under punished depending on the severity of the crime committed. Tackling drug dependency among the criminals is to be based on the aspect of recovery and not maintenance. The dependants can be got off drugs through the introduction of new wing of recovery and options of testing for the exhaustive treatment of the community. It is therefore proposed that the problem of drugs by working with various partners in the government: new drug recovery wings in the prison and better treatment in the community (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2003). The offenders should be made eligible to enter into the work programme for the improvement of their chances to get an honest employment and working well with a recognized Department of Health to avoid any physical complication of the offenders. According to the new reforms are committed to ensure that the offenders who have some mental health complications are diverted to the appropriate health care services. The officers are expected learn the lessons on the approach to manage women criminals and applying them in the most appropriate manner. This is because women are a bit unique compared to men hence they should be handled in a special way for most effective outcomes. Conclusion The rate of crimes committed in the current society is becoming high with the changes in lifestyle. There are many crimes involved with the daily activities as people struggle to meet their daily needs at reduce the gap between various social classes thus the less fortunate are trying hard to live like those in the upper social classes. To solve this problem and improve the public safety and security, the criminal justice system is trying to come up with most effective ways of breaking the monotonous cycle of effective punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of the offenders. These reforms were accompanied by the proposals of implementing these factors; these are the most appropriate ways of implementing the efforts to punish, rehabilitate and sentence the offenders with the intention of completely changing the behaviour of those whose life is prone to crimes. For example, those living in slums live under the pressure of breaking laws like robbing the rich so as to get close to them if not equal to them. Bibliography Ministry of Justice, 2010, Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders, The Stationery Office Limited, London. Ministry of Justice, 2010, Green Paper Evidence Report, Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders, The Stationery Office Limited, London. Siegel, L., 2010, Criminology: The Core, Cengage Learning, New York. Newburn, T., 2007, Criminology, Willan, London. Carrabine, E. & Lee, M., 2009, Criminology: A Sociological Introduction, Taylor & Francis, Vatican. Vito, G., Maahs, J. & Holmes, R., 2006, Criminology: theory, research, and policy, Jones & Bartlett Learning, New York. O'Brien, M. & Yar, M., 2008, Criminology: the key concepts, Taylor & Francis, Vatican. Walklate, S., 2005, Criminology: the basics, Taylor & Francis, Vatican. Beirne, P. & Messerschmidt, J., 2000, Criminology, Westview Press, Mexico. Adler, F., Mueller, G. & Laufer, W., 2003, Criminology, McGraw-Hill, Texas. Read More