Chapter 3 The purpose of Punishment and Sentencing Trends PDF

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The purpose of punishment and sentencing Trends - Sentencing policies and practices exert a huge influence on the corrections system - They determine which individuals are managed through which correctional options - Sentencing and sentencing requirements, which are often dictated by law, affect the length of time that persons remain under correctional supervision and generally set the conditions for correctional social control How sentencing works - A presentence investigation is created & suggests community supervision option to the court - In many cases, a parole board determines when a person will complete his or her incarceration and the terms of this release - In 2015, 17 states & district of columbia primarily used a determinate sentences - Judges can sometimes depart from those determinate sentences by stating certain aggravating or mitigating factors - Some states and the federal court system have sentencing guidelines that use a variation of these defines sentencing options The presentence report - Another important part of the report has to do w the likelihood that the defendant will reoffend in the future as measured by a risk assessment instrument (RAI) - The RAI helps evaluate risk level by ranking offense severity & offense history among factors - A presentence investigation may rely on hearsay evidence and the defendant does not have the right to confront his or her accusers as he or she would have in criminal court - Sentences may be largely determined by the results of plea bargains or by statutes that mandate the penalties for various crimes Risks & needs assessments - Concerns about the uneven quality of presentence reports and attention to precisely allocating scarce resources where they can have the most positive effect have led to the use of very structured risk & needs assessment tools in the sentencing process - Risk factors: are largely static in nature and are based on the type and severity of the offense. Can't really change - Criminogenic needs:are also correlated with a likelihood of reoffending but are generally of a dynamic or changeable nature. Ex: employment status, drug offense, education - Non criminogenic needs: related to criminogenic needs but have not been found to directly correlate to reoffending. - Includes: anxiety, major mental health and a history of victimization

Sentencing Theories - The evolution of correctional systems is deeply rooted in social and economic transformations The dominant political rhetoric is still focused on ideologies of deterrence retributive justice Deterrence - Deterrence is related to retributive justice but is a very different justification for penal practice - This theory of punishment is the most widely accepted in western criminal law systems - It rests on the assumption that the goal of punishment is not to reactive but rather preventive - This idea is prominent in efforts to hea off repeat offending or recidivism(do it again) -

Two types of deterrence: General deterrence: Punish the individual in order to control everyone else: can punish harshly. Goal: not to let anyone else do the crime 1. Punishment has to be public 2. Punishment has to be swift (right away) 3. Has to be certain (everyone caught has to be punished)

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Specific deterrence: Punish the offender to control that person's future behavior

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Retribution: ‘’eye for an eye’’ Only reason for punishment because you did something wrong Today this is used with the death penalty because you only get the death penalty if you murder

Incapacitation - The incapacitation theory of punishment suggest that the principal goal of the penal system is to separate offenders from the community - Incapacitation rests on the assumption that a small number of offenders commit the vast majority of serious crimes - The idea of incapacitation rests on the assumption that there are very small number of high rate offenders - Selective incapacitation: take out the one committing the most crime. An example of this is the 3 strike law - Biggest problem with selective incapacitation is

Wolfgang

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Wolfgang chronic 6% Study in 1948 follows every boy male until adulthood Found: majority had contact with the police 6% of the males were responsible for 50% of the crimes

Rehabilitation - The core idea that the corrections system could engage inmates in activities including work,education, religion, counseling, and other therapeutic interventions that could supposedly transform offenders into law-abiding citizens - The concept of rehabilitation advanced most rapidly with juvenile offenders who were thought to be more amenable to reform - This jurisprudence of the juvenile court was based on rehabilitation - In adult corrections rehabilitation was based on rhetoric than on actual practices where minimal investments were made in education and counseling programs - The crime itself is a diagnostic tool: figure out how we can help this person Theories of restorative justice and reintegrative shaming - Other theories of punishment such as restorative justice and reintegrative shaming shifts the focus onto transforming the harm done to victims and to the community and leaving them more committed and integrated than before These theories proposed that justice is best served when an offender is confronted by community peers and agrees to make restitution and perform a service to the community - 3 things to make effective: - 1. have an offender willing to take responsibility - 2. Have a victim specify the harm done to them and be willing to forgive - 3. Community willing to reintegrate the offender Contemporary movements in sentencing laws and policies - These sentencing reforms fundamentally changed the practice of sentencing in indeterminate sentencing states and altered the impact of sentencing commissions - Mandatory minimum curtailed the ability of judges to consider traditional mitigating factors - The response to these practices was a series of laws known under the generic name of truth in sentencing: mandatory portion of sentence - A number of judges had a different response to legislative decriminalization - Proposed the establishment of drug courts to provide intensive supervision sbf services to some individuals in lieu of imprisonment...