Year in and year out we see demands by the media and other interest groups such as Victims of Crime for instant to increase Prison sentences.  The bellowingly  rant on about the Judiciary handing out lenient sentences,  or slap on the wrist from Judges who are so called 'out of touch' with the real world. Even though we have record numbers of prisoners within our prison population the same call continues to be made...

In the international race to incarcerate, the United States dominates, with few rivals and no rich countries within shouting distance. Incarceration rates across countries are best measured as shares of national populations. Last year, for every 100,000 people in the United States, 738 were in prison. Second-place Russia, whom the United States succeeded in 2000, currently boasts a rate of 603, but the only other OECD country with a rate above 200 is Poland at 229. The U.K. incarceration rate of 145 is the highest of any Western European country. Although African-Americans suffer the greatest relative burden of U.S. imprisonment, the incarceration rate for whites in the United States is still more than three times the OECD average.

To its credit, the United States hasn't always imprisoned such a large share of its population. Incarceration rates were steady, sometimes falling, and always below 200 throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. The prison population rate rose sharply from 1973 to 1980, and then skyrocketed, more than tripling over the past 25 years.

Five broad rationales for society to take action against

People who have done something that is considered wrong,

Or that is in some other way undesirable, may be identified.

These are:

1. Retribution. Punishment based on the ideological proposition

That a person who does something that society

Judges to be wrong in a moral sense deserves to be

Punished, and that society has a right to ensure that

Appropriate punishment is administered. This proposition

Has been described in various ways (e.g., “justice”,

“restoring social equity”), and since the 1950s has

Dominated the criminal justice system in western

Societies (Kelly, 1992). Implications of this proposition

include the following:

*

The severity of punishment should be limited to what

Is considered just for the particular circumstances,

People should only be punished for actions that are

“Wilful” or “negligent”,

Actions seen as wrong, and hence deserving

Of‘

Punishment, will be different from one culture to

Another, and from time to time; the severity of the

Punishment that is considered warranted will also

Vary.

The ultimate criterion used to determine the severity

Of

The punishment in any particular case is society’s view

Of how wrong the action was under the circumstances.

Society cannot, of course, be consulted on every offence,

So a surrogate mechanism has been set up that involves a

Parliament creating an offence and setting a maximum

Penalty, and a magistrate or judge making

A

Judgement

About what penalty is deserved in a particular case?

2.

Specific deterrence.

It may be that punishing someone

Will change his or her subsequent behaviour. Whether

This is so or not is an empirical question and, as Samson

Et al.

(1996) have noted, there is little evidence of effectiveness.

To be continued in a later HUb...