Do Prisons Rehabilitate?

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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.” http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/lrgtxt.asp The 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 pr...

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...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.

REFERENCES

Internet Sites
All of the below listed sites were last accessed on 10/12/2002

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/prisonerlearning/init_p.cfm?ID=13

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/prisonerlearning/init_p.cfm?ID=17

http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,747482,00.html

http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/lrgtxt.asp

http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/news/newstext.asp?272

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/prishist.htm

http://society.guardian.co.uk/mentalhealth/story/0,8150,682850,00.html

http://www.learn.co.uk/yvote/debates/crimeprisonpro.htm

http://www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/publications/reports/html/Reducing_Re-offending/chap ter_one.htm http://www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/publications/reports/html/Reducing_Re-offending/chap ter_two.htm http://www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/publications/reports/html/Reducing_Re-offending/chap ter_five.htm http://www.stoptheaca.org/purpose.html

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