Majesty's Prison Service example essay topic

Do Prisons Rehabilitate? In this essay, I shall be focusing on the whether or Prisons rehabilitate offenders. I will do this by focusing mainly on the Prison Service in England & Wales, the reason for this, being that the data and statistics for England & Wales are easier to obtain than that of other countries. The main information I will be referring to will be the rates of conviction, types of imprisonment, types of non-custodial sentences. Also I will explore some of the current methods of offender rehabilitation. Her Majesty's Prison Service is composed of two main types of prisons, they are open and closed prisons.

Following the Mountbatten Report (1965) Prisoners were placed into security categories, ranging from category A (high risk prisoner - escape would pose a serious risk to the public or state) to category D (low risk prisoner - can be trusted in open prison conditions). Prisons have four major purposes, they are; retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. Retribution means punishment for crimes against society. Prisons serve to deprive criminals of their freedom is a way of making them pay a debt to society for their crimes. Incapacitation refers to the removal of criminals from society so that they can no longer harm innocent people. Deterrence means the prevention of future crime, it is hoped that bye imprisoning a criminal, it deters them from committing the crime again and also deters others from committing crime.

Rehabilitation refers to activities designed to change criminals into law abiding citizens, and may include providing educational courses in prison, teaching job skills and offering counselling with a psychologist or social worker. Over many years the focus of the prison service has switched between the four purposes, therefore at different times in history the importance of rehabilitation has fluctuated". Her Majesty's Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those committed by the courts. Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release". web above statement of purpose is that of Her Majesty's Prison Service. As can be seen from the statement, there seems to be a focus on incapacitation and rehabilitation.

Over many years, people's attitude towards how to deal with prisoners has changed, this was reflected by the Gladstone Report in 1895 which said that 'we start from the principle that prison treatment should have as its primary and concurrent objects, deterrence and reformation'. In general, it would be fair to say that the majority of people in England and Wales would agree with the statement that prisons are not working. The reason for this is that on average 50% of prisoners within 2 years of release will re offend. Hence this shows that prisons do not rehabilitate everyone who passes through them, Norman Brennan is quoted below saying that it is not the prisons that fail, but it is the inmates that fail. I think that the only way that the prison service can rehabilitate offenders is if the offenders themselves are willing to be rehabilitated". It is wrong therefore to say that prisons fail; it is their inmates who fail.

If on discharge from prison the ex-prisoner re-offend, it confirms that a custodial sentence was right in the first place... ". Norman Brennan, Director of the Victims of Crime Trust, and a 23-year serving policeman Often now, it is believed that a prison sentence is not always the most effective way of punishing an offender. As stated below, often a custodial sentence causes more harm than good. The main reason for this is that when a offender is sentenced to prison, they often loose their job and the chance to see and be seen by their family. In many cases this is not likely to cause a difference in the offenders criminal behaviour because when they are released they will have no job and are often rejected by their family, therefore there is no reason for them not to commit an offence again.

Prison can damage the positive links between a prisoner and their family - breakings table relationships with partners and children. Can lead to financial, emotional and health problems among family members... web Re-offending / chapter five. htm Recently the Home Secretary released plans to introduce new types of sentencing, these would include; Custody plus (An innovative, flexible sentence is to cover the 60,000 short-term inmates serving 12 months or less... to be followed by a period under supervision of the probation service in the community undergoing programmes to tackle offending until the end of the sentence), Custody minus (Custody plus and Intermittent custody to deny liberty whilst allowing the offender to hold down a job and maintain crucial links with the family will all help to achieve this goal). web Community penalties were planned, these include parenting orders, probation orders, reparation orders and action plan orders would be brought together under the single name of 'community punishment orders' including compulsory work, paying reparations to victims, curfews and drug treatment. These new schemes would serve to act as a punishment and would mean that a custodial sentence would not be necessary and that the offender would be giving something back to the community. Persistent offenders were also high on the Home Secretaries agenda. New sentencing guidelines backed by parliamentary authority would be issued to judges so that more account is taken of previous convictions in sentencing. Therefore persistent offenders would serve a longer or different punishment, because if they problem has not been dealt with on previous occasions it is obvious that something different needs to be done.

Current Rehabilitation Initiatives include the Basic skills scheme. The aim of this scheme is to improve the offenders basic skills (reading and writing skills), so that upon release the offender will find it easier to secure some form of employment, and therefore if that happens they are less likely to re offend, because they have more to loose if they are arrested again". In any one year, 130,000 people are or have been in prison, with a further 200,000 supervised by the Probation Service in the community. Around 50% of these individuals have poor reading skills, 66% have poor numeracy skills, and a staggering 81% of prisoners have writing skills below Level 1". web p. cf m?

ID = 13 Often when prisoner are released from prison they return home, to the same place in which they first committed an offence, with the same friends and the same temptation to commit crime again. Even if whilst in prison a prisoner is rehabilitated, upon release many find it difficult to resist committing crime again. The reason for this is that they have no job and they get back into the same routine as before. Resettlement is a key factor upon release, when released, if the prisoner has something to aim for (i.e. a job) then they are less likely to re offend".

Those in work are half as likely to re-offend compared to those without a job". Nick Brown, DWP and Beverley Hughes, HO: TUC publication "Employment and Ex-Offenders" I believe that a key factor in the rehabilitation of an offender is to improve their education, this is not always 'basic skills', in some cases, offenders are capable of obtaining a Degree. Therefore the rehabilitation options as far as education are concerned must be varied and tailored to the abilities of the individual and widely available whilst serving a custodial sentence, so that there is some form of constructive activity being carried out whilst in prison". Half of men and two thirds of women have no qualifications when they get to prison.

Only one in three of them has a job... More than half of all prisoners are re-convicted within two years of release. Education and training helps ex-offenders find and hold down a job... N ACRO and other voluntary bodies help thousands of prisoners resettle" web p. cf m? ID = 17 To say whether or not prison works, you must look at the rates of re conviction, because if the prison service was perfect, an offender would enter the prison a criminal, be rehabilitated and punished and then leave at the end of their sentence as a law-abiding citizen.

Research undertaken by the Home Office suggests that released prisoners are responsible for around 18 per cent of recorded crime, that is, around 950,000 crimes per year". A prison sentence also presents the opportunity to reduce... Its ability to make a longer term, sustained difference to the causes of re-offending and to prisoners " attitudes and behaviour is at the centre of this report". web Re-offending / chapter five. htm In conclusion, I believe that every offender is different and that each individual offender is offending for a different reason any another. However, I believe that some key factors seem to 'dictate' whether or not someone will become involved in a life of crime, these include the individuals education, family stability and relations, and their employment status.

The following statistics form the Social Exclusion Unit have shown cle aryl that a higher that average percentage of prisoners were taken into care as a child (General population: 2%, Prisoners: 27%), also research has shown that in regard to education a higher than average percentage of prisoners have no qualifications (General population: 15%, Prisoners: 52% men and 71% women) and that it was a similar case when referring to exclusion from school (General population: 2%, Prisoners: 49% of male and 33% women). Therefore this evidence shows that the major factors mentioned seem to be quite evident in the prison population. I personally believe the prison service have a incredibly difficult task to perform, because when an offender enters a prison which is sometimes referred to as the rubbish-bin of the criminal justice system for the simple fact that you are often sentenced when nothing else has worked and in effect the system has given up. The prison service has no control over the prisoners that they take in, and therefore as the offenders stay in custody is forced rehabilitation will not be effective unless the offender wants to be rehabilitated.

Bibliography

Internet Sites All of the below listed sites were last accessed on 10/12/2002 web p. cf m? ID = 13 web p. cf m? ID = 17 web Re-offending / chapter one. htm web Re-offending / chapter two. htm web Re-offending / chapter five. htm web.