Psychology
Community Sentencing
Community sentencing is a form of punishment that involves offenders serving their sentence within the community rather than in prison. It aims to rehabilitate the individual by providing access to support services and programs while maintaining a level of accountability. This approach is often used for non-violent offenders and can include measures such as community service, electronic monitoring, or treatment programs.
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10 Key excerpts on "Community Sentencing"
eBook - PDFEvaluation Research
An Introduction to Principles, Methods and Practice
- Alan Clarke(Author)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
The 1982 Criminal Justice Act further promoted the development of alternatives to imprisonment by recommending that probation orders should impose additional requirements on offenders. This Act, along with subsequent Criminal Justice Acts in 1988 and 1991, also provided guidance on sentencing decision-making designed to encourage courts to make greater use of non-custodial penalties. These various sentencing initiatives were orig inally referred to as 'alternatives to custody' and collectively defined as 'those penalties which, following conviction and sentence, allow an offender to spend part or all of his or her sentence in the community and outside prison establishments' (Vass, 1990: 2). However, in recent years, a marked shift in the politics of crime control policy has resulted in the rehabilitative ideal in Community Sentencing being challenged by a belief in 'punish-ment in the community'. As expressed in the White Paper entitled Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public: The Government believes tha t more offenders should be punished in the community. There seems to be an assumption that custody is the only 'real ' punishment. This is reinforced sometimes by confusing references to other penalties as 'alterna tives to custody'. No other penalty can place the same restrictions on liberty as a custodial sentence; if it did, it would be another form of custody: so there can in reality be no 'alterna tive' to it, only other ways of punishing. (Home Office, 1990a: 18) Such has been the change in policy rhetoric that the term 'alternatives to custody' has been replaced by the phrase 'community penalties' when referring to non-custodial sentences. It is not surprising that the proliferation of community-based criminal sanctions has led to a growth in evaluation research. According to Pease et a1. (1975) when dealing with new penal measures two types of evaluation can be identified.
eBook - PDF- Brian Stout, Joe Yates, Brian Williams, Brian Stout, Joe Yates, Brian Williams(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
In other words, their distinctive characteristics reflect continuing arguments about where and on what basis to draw the line between unequivocally punitive measures of incarceration, and those which appear to espouse a wider range of objectives. The position of these ‘alternatives’ to custody has always been, and will remain, anomalous because they are located and, indeed, conceptualized within a broader penal landscape. As a result, they are conventionally understood and evaluated ‘in the shadow’ of ideas and practices which are shaped by the logic of punishment. Definition: Community Interventions By community interventions we mean those means of dealing with reported (and admitted) criminal offences which do not result in the offender being detained in a secure setting. Some of these interventions, such as the reprimand and final warning, are administered by the police and do not go any further, whilst others are made as a result of court proceedings, such as the Referral Order, Action Plan Order and Supervision Order. Some interventions, such as the ISSP are not free-standing interventions but incorporated as a requirement of a court order. As we will see, this is heavily contested terrain, with a wide variety of justifications and practices incorporated under the broad umbrella of community sentences, and it will be important here to try to disentangle these, in order to illuminate wider criminal justice debates as well as the challenges for those engaged in direct practice. Confusion and uncertainty of purpose are widespread, and this is not surprising given the underlying tensions and conflicts. This should not, however, lead one to the conclusion that these problems cannot be addressed or resolved satisfactorily. Indeed, as we shall see, focusing particularly on developments in youth justice, some approaches to Community Sentencing are more plausible than others, and may point the way towards more positive practice developments in the future.
Tougher powers on breach, including a possibility of a term of imprisonment even when the original offence was not imprisonable (Sch. 8) Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 Power for courts to suspend prison sentences of up to two years Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2013 All community orders must include a punitive element Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 Extends supervision to all released prisoners, including the possibility of recall to prison for breach Introduces rehabilitation activity requirement (see following discussion)There are compelling arguments for trying to increase the use of community sentences, to improve their implementation and effectiveness and – just as importantly – to make this apparent to courts and to the public. However, there is little evidence of the capacity for community sentences on their own to have a discernible impact on the numbers of people in prison. This claim has gained further support from a recent study that found that across Europe community sanctions have ‘widened the net’, tending to supplement rather than reduce imprisonment (Aebi, Delgrande and Marguet 2015).Cohen (1985) argued that the relationship between prison and its supposed alternatives is more symbiotic than competitive: they work together to extend and disperse social control. While this thesis has had its critics (Bottoms 1983), it is still very difficult to point to contemporary examples of ‘alternatives’ leading directly to a reduction in a prison population. Even when replacing terms of imprisonment, community sentences typically displace (at best) those who would have served short terms of imprisonment and therefore tend to have no more than a modest effect on the prison population, which is influenced not only by the number of people sent there but, and perhaps more significantly, by the length of time for which they stay (Fitzmaurice and Pease 1986).Net-widening is one well-known hazard of non-custodial sanctions (Cohen 1985). These sentences may deflect some offenders from custody but draw in many more who might otherwise have been dealt with in less intrusive and cheaper ways. Over time, while probation may have worked with more serious offenders during and after periods of imprisonment, it has had to deal, on community sentences, with less
eBook - PDFPsychology and Crime
2nd edition
- Aidan Sammons, David Putwain(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
They estimated that, compared with ‘standard’ prison (i.e. the offender is simply confined for the duration of her sentence), both prison with added elements (such as educational input, drug treatment and sex offender treatment) and community-based sentences (such as intense surveillance in the community) were significantly more effective at reducing recidivism. They found that alternatives to ‘standard’ imprisonment saved significant amounts of public money, between £19,000 and £88,000 per offender. Non-custodial sentencing Besides imprisonment, legal systems have a variety of other means of punishing and reforming offenders. In the UK and the US, the commonest forms of non-custodial sentence are fines, probation and community punishment, which are discussed below. In addition to these, courts in England and Wales may impose other sen-tences (Ashworth, 2010): ■ Absolute discharge. The offender is released with no conditions attached. This is only very rarely applied, typically for the most minor of offences. ■ Conditional discharge or ‘bind over’. The offender is released on the condition that, should they commit another offence within a specified time period (up to three years), they will be sentenced for both that offence and the original one. It is used as a threat to maintain good behaviour. chapter 9 Judicial responses to offending 123 ■ Compensation order. The offender is required to pay a specified sum of money to her victim(s) to recompense for her offence. This is different from a fine, which is paid to the authorities. Fines A fine is a sum of money paid to the authorities by an offender as restitution for her offence. The amount is set by the trial judge but must be within limits laid down by law. Caldwell (1965) suggests that fines have a number of advantages over other forms of punishment.
eBook - PDF- Larry Siegel, John Worrall(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
LO2 Describe the history of community sentences The roots of Community Sentencing can be traced to the English common-law practice of judicial reprieve, which allowed judges to suspend punishment so that convicted offenders could seek a pardon, gather new evidence, or demonstrate that they had reformed their behavior. John Augustus of Boston is usually credited with pioneering community sen- tencing in the United States when he voluntarily supervised young people convicted of crime, a practice that led to the modern probation concept. LO3 Define the different types of probation sentences Probationary sentences may be granted by state and federal district courts and state superior (felony) courts. Some are to a straight term of probation, while others involve a suspended sentence, a delayed sentence, or a mixed sentence involving a jail or prison stay. 268 PA R T 4 • C O R R E C T I O N S A N D A LT E R N AT I V E S A N C T I O N S Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. C H A P T E R 1 0 • C O M M U N I T Y S E N T E N C E S 269 LO4 List the rules of probation When granting probation, the court sets down certain conditions or rules of behavior that the probationer is bound to obey. Rules can set curfews, prohibit behaviors such as drinking and owning a gun, and/ or mandate that the probationer hold a job and not leave the jurisdiction without permission. Probation may be revoked if clients fail to comply with rules and disobey reasonable requests to meet their treatment obligations.
eBook - PDFDoing Justice Better
The Politics of Restorative Justice
- Cornwell, David J.(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Waterside Press(Publisher)
Above all else, however, restorative penology makes no concession to ‘soft options’ for offenders: rather, it makes them face reality, take responsibility for their behaviour and do something that is evident to make good the harm done. Community-based corrections are a visible manifestation of justice in action and in this important sense, justice can be creative rather than destructive. Well-planned and carefully supervised community service projects, of immediate social and amenity value to local areas and their inhabitants, provide the ideal launch pad for community justice. It is, however, essential to return to a situation in which community service is identified as an alternative sanction to imprisonment, rather than as a conditional release from custody. This does not imply that community service should not be capable of being converted to imprisonment in serious cases of default or non-compliance: rather, that there is an expectation of compliance since the offender has consented 46 at trial to abide by the conditions of the sanction. As we have seen in previous chapters, the concept of making reparation is the pivotal requirement of restorative corrections. If it becomes possible for victims, offenders and other legitimately interested parties to become reconciled at any stage in the sanction process, then this is not only desirable, but it also deserves consideration in the sentencing and supervisory processes of justice. It cannot, however, be relied upon and its absence should not, therefore, be seen as an aggravating factor in sentencing. To this end, the fact that offenders make reparation to victims of crime in a wider or more general sense becomes the dominant consideration. 45 Such, for example, as general deterrence (Cornwell, 2006 op. cit., pp. 58-60). 46 Under English law, consent is not now a pre-requisite except in a limited number of situations.
eBook - ePub- Faulkner, David, Burnett, Ros, David Faulkner, Ros Burnett(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Policy Press(Publisher)
SEVEN Community sentences and desistance from crimeCommunity-based interventions and sentences provide opportunities for applying the constructive, encouraging and enabling principles advocated in this book. Supervision of offenders in the community has traditionally fallen to probation services and the youth offending services of local authorities. This chapter therefore looks at shared aspects of these two public sector services. Although probation and youth justice have separate histories, infrastructures and bodies of professional and academic expertise, they both have their roots in social work and what has been called ‘penal welfarism’ (Garland, 2001), and they have each relied on a similar practice model for working with those under their supervision. The evidence base on their effectiveness is also linked. During the past 30 years, seismic changes have altered their governance, their statutory purpose and, therefore, their professional priorities and working culture.A detailed account would need to have regard to differences in the legislative and organisational structures and the distinct histories of probation (Raynor and Vanstone, 2007) and youth justice (Morgan and Newburn, 2007), but, in the context of community responses to crime, it is worth bringing both services together in order to consider valuable common ground, particularly as they relate to shared concerns for promoting welfare, social inclusion and rehabilitation. Even though in recent decades these public sector community services have been politicised and driven by ‘the neo-liberal legalistic ethos of responsibility and punishment’ (Muncie and Hughes, 2002, p 1), there is research evidence to suggest that most practitioners in these services are still motivated by an ethic of care, and they continue to attract people who want to help people (Burnett and Appleton, 2004; Annison et al, 2008).
eBook - PDF- Margit E. Oswald, Steffen Bieneck, Jorg Hupfeld-Heinemann(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
As Roberts and Stalans (2004) noted in their review of the literature on public opinion about restorative justice, few studies have directly empirically examined public support for restorative justice as a sentencing goal. Prison sentences typi- cally do not allow the offender to address the victim’s harm or to reintegrate easily back into the community without enduring stigma. Prison sentences are contradictory to the goal of restorative justice and better fulfil the goal of retribu- tive justice. Whereas retributive justice requires that the severity of the sentence increases as the seriousness of the offense increases, the restorative form of proportionality requires offenders to apologize, to offer compensation and to S O C I A L P S Y C H O L O G Y O F P U N I S H M E N T O F C R I M E 246 make other gestures such as community service that become more onerous in relation to the degree of harm inflicted and are related to repairing the harm that the crime caused. Examples of restorative sanctions are community service that is tailored to address the harm done to the community by the offender’s offense, and restitution to the victim. Restorative justice is conceptually different from the goal of rehabilitation in that it focuses on having the offender accept respon- sibility for the crime, compensate the victim for the harm done and make redress to the community in a way that will allow the offender to most easily integrate into the community. Methodology used to assess the importance of various sentencing goals From early childhood socialization, political interest, religious instruction and moral education, individuals have developed very diverse and complex attitudes about the most appropriate and just responses for specific types of criminal offending.
eBook - PDF- Larry Siegel, John Worrall(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202 472 PART 4 CORRECTIONS The History of Community Sentencing JOHN AUGUSTUS Contemporary Probation Services The common-law practice that allowed judges to suspend punishment so that convicted offenders could seek a pardon, gather new evidence, or demonstrate that they had reformed their behavior. The medieval practice of allowing convicted offenders to go unpunished if they agreed to refrain from any further criminal behavior. LO 1 Discuss the history of community sentences. For more information about John Augustus and the history of probation, visit http://www .nyc.gov/html/prob/html/about /history.shtml. WWW LO 2 Characterize the different types of probation sentences. Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202 CHAPTER 12 COMMUNITY SENTENCES: PROBATION, INTERMEDIATE SANCTIONS, AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE 473 Conditions of Probation PROBATION CONDITIONS IN THE INTERNET AGE Awarding Probation Conditions or restrictions mandated by the court that must be obeyed by a probationer. An administrative act performed by a parole authority that removes a person from parole, or a judicial order by a court removing a person from parole or probation, in response to a violation on the part of the parolee or probationer. LO 3 Summarize the rules of probation. For a list of typical probation conditions, see http://www.law .cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3563. WWW Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202 474 PART 4 CORRECTIONS CAN CRIMINALS BE REFORMED? Is there a point at which offenders no longer pose a threat to society? This is an important issue since more than 80 per-cent of U.S. employers perform criminal background checks on prospective employees and those that do may not want to hire ex-offenders.
eBook - PDF- Leanne Fiftal Alarid, Leanne Alarid(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
It should be no surprise that even following offender sentencing, victims can still feel angry, unsupported, more socially isolated, and more distrustful of a system that was designed to punish on their behalf. Many come to realize that government-sanctioned retribution achieves a form of justice or revenge but does not necessarily heal. Traditional criminal justice strategies and the “get tough” movement may not be as effective as we once thought in dealing with the harm, social isolation, and destruction of com-munity trust that result when crimes are committed. Separating predatory and violent offenders from the general public is necessary, but incarceration is not a magic bullet for most offenders, the majority of whom will be released one day. Incarcerating more people for longer periods of time does not necessarily make our communities safer. Community Stakeholders The concept of community justice entails using community stakeholders to control and reduce crime and to rebuild community relationships through community policing, community courts, and restorative justice. Examples of community stakeholders can be found in Figure 10.1. Although some authors use the terms community justice and restorative justice interchangeably, commu-nity justice is actually a broader concept that describes a philosophy encompass-ing the whole criminal justice system (police, courts, and corrections), whereas community justice A philosophy of using community—through community policing, community courts, restorative justice, and broken-windows probation— to control and reduce crime. Family, friends, and other concerned citizens Business community and schools Former prisoners or offender support groups Faith-based and nonprofit social agencies Community police officers and community prosecutors Victims and advocacy groups FIGURE 10.1 Community Stakeholders. Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.
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