The Need for Prisons in Britain
The prison population in England and Wales currently stands at 71,800.
According to the Home Office estimate this figure is projected to rise
to 83,500 by 2008. Similarly in Scotland, which has a separate legal
system and its own private service, there are similar pressures.
Prisons can be successful in their four aims: retribution, protection,
deterrence and rehabilitation. Reconviction rates are at a substantial
low, but is that enough? Whilst compared with the problems facing
prisons aquestion arises, 'is it really prisons Britain needs?' There
are several other approaches to punishing, deterring and
rehabilitating offenders whilst also protecting the public. These
include the increasingly popular Community Punishment Order (CPO),
previously known as Community Service. This involves the offender
doing unpaid work that shall benefit the community, however this also
entails the offender learning new skills. Otherwise we have the
ever-prevalent fine. This requires the criminal to pay a sum of money,
up to £5000, if sentenced by the Magistrates and there is no limit as
to the maximum that can be imposed by Crown Courts. The success of
fines is a much-debated issue. These are just a pair of alternative
sentences; this essay will fully explore the concept that Britain
needs more prisons. Is the Prison Service struggling to cope with the
continuing rise of incarcerated criminals? Are prisons successful in
their aims or are the alternatives the way forward? I wish to
thoroughly analyse these questions to come to an adequate and reasoned
conclusion based on the evidence I have acquired.
The prison popul...
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...tion is spiralling
out of control. This is unacceptable they need to acknowledge that
some changes are required and have the courage, as Finland did, to
renovate the current justice system.
Does Britain need more prisons? The evidence and statistics say it
all. No. So what does Britain need? The rate of conviction and
incarceration is increasing all the time; therefore Britain needs a
solution, that is unquestionable. The evidence suggests Britain should
move to reform and become more liberal as the successes of Finland are
a hard magnetism to disregard. Yet despite the attraction Britain's
leaders are still clinging to their socialist policies, which could
cause devastation to the already stretched Prison Service. By
following Finland's lead Britain could, over time, reform to produce a
promising justice system.
The purpose of Angela Y.Davis in the last two chapters of the book “Are Prisons Obsolete” are the issues that nestled inside the prison industrial complex and what should we do to the abolitionist.
Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.
This type of legislation has been devised to allow for the detention of people based upon assessments of risk of re-offending, this essay will explore the concerns with these practices. This essay further aims to explore the moral and practical implications of such sentencing provisions and the impact it has on the whole Justice System. The writer will also address the conflicting goals of Corrections and the purpose and impact of indefinite sentencing while exploring the justifications against such legislation. This essay also aims to show that even though we may feel disgust for these types of offences we must remember the fundamentals of the Criminal Law system and understand that people are entitled to equality and fairness in the eyes of the law.
According to Mark Early, president of the Prison Fellowship International, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows that there are 19 states that have prisons operating at 100 percent capacity and another 20 are falling right behind them. There is no wonder why the overcrowding of prisons is being discussed everywhere. Not to mention how serious this predicament is and how serious it can get. Many of the United States citizens don’t understand why this is such a serious matter due to the fact that some of them believe it’s not their problem. Therefore they just don’t care about it. Also, some Americans may say that they don’t care about what could happen to the inmates due to repercussions of overcrowding, because it’s their own fault. In order to cure this growing problem people have to start caring about what’s going on, even if it’s to people who might deserve it.
Three walls. One toilet seat. Bars made of mild steel and a lock only accessible to men who government calls authority figures. Prison systems are known for three things: to protect the people, to punish the criminal and to rehabilitate the prisoner so that a crime will not be further committed. However, it has been causing ongoing controversy on whether or not it has been stripping away the earned rights of citizens or indeed helping them become “better” for society.
It was a warm August night in Baltimore when police found the bodies of three teenage boys gunned down outside a playground. One of the teens was Franklin Morris a seventeen-year-old frequently suspend from school and left to his own vices. His mother concerned about the direction he was heading reached out for help. A counselor suggested a deterrence program aimed a scaring him straight. At fourteen years old Franklin was featured on the A&E network show Scared Straight.(Cable) A television show that follows around trouble juveniles while they tour and experience the hardened criminal world of prisons, hoping to deter them from the prison system. The show portrayed him as a young man with no boundaries and lack of respect towards the community and his parents. Within three years after the program, Franklin was right back on the street with a more hardened attitude. What could have prevented him from succumbing to a violent life on the streets? And how do we prevent others from ending up in the same situation.
Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.
As the current prison structures and sentencing process continues to neglect the issues that current offenders have no change will accrue to prevent recidivism. The issue with the current structure of the prison sentencing process is it does not deal with the “why” the individual is an social deviant but only looks at the punishment process to remove the deviant from society. This method does not allow an offender to return back to society without continuing where they left off. As an offender is punished they are sentenced (removal from society) they continue in an isolated environment (prison) after their punishment time is completed and are released back to society they are now an outsider to the rapidly changing social environment. These individuals are returned to society without any coping skills, job training, or transitional training which will prevent them from continuing down th...
This research proposal aims to examine the effectiveness of British prisons, a topic that seems to be omnipresent in the media and in public debate. Allison (2014) recently reported that suicide and murder rates in British prisons are at the highest level that it has been for years. In 2013, there were 199 prison deaths, which included four homicides and seventy suicides. Moreover, statistics gathered by the Prison Reform Trust suggest that the rises in prison suicide rates may be a result of mental health problems, with 26% of women and 16% of men being treated for mental heath problems prior to their prison sentence; and a massive 62% of men and 52% of women are classed as exhibiting a personality disorder (ibid). Therefore, these statistics alone justify an updated examination of the effectiveness of British prisons, but there are also other areas that require investigation.
Most prisoners that are in prison now are more than likely to be free one day where some will spend the rest of their living life there. When they enter into the prison system, they lose more than just being able to wear what they want. They even lose more than just their civil liberties. Gresham Sykes was the first to outline these major deprivations that prisoners go through in his book The Society of Captives. His five major pains, which he calls “pains of imprisonment”, were loss of liberty, loss of autonomy, loss of security, deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and deprivation of goods and services. Matthew Robinson adds onto Sykes’ five pains with three more of his own. His additional pains are loss of voting rights, loss of dignity,
Although it may not seem like a major problem to most people in the United States, prisons are becoming overcrowded, expensive to maintain and have little to no effect on the moral discipline of inmates. The current prison system is extremely inefficient and the purpose of prisons has been completely forgotten. According to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the primary purpose of prisons is to punish, to protect, and to rehabilitate. Not only is there an increase in prisoners, but there is a rise in the number of repeat offenders. Alternatives such as counseling, drug rehabilitation, education, job training and victim restitution must be better enforced and organized. People do not understand the severity of the problem mainly because
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
Prisoners are people too. They’re just like everyone else. They may have been at the wrong place during the wrong time or they just didn’t make a very bright decision. Author _________, wrote “Transitioning inmates into society is key”, which was published on September 3, 2015 by the Bismarck Tribune, states that inmates are more likely to commit another crime because they don’t have a support system to help them when they get out. Prisoners have a hard time transitioning back into society once they are released, but in recent years, ministry programs have emerged to help them get back to everyday life.
a term that they use to reference the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and