What is the purpose of imprisonment Essay Example
What is the purpose of imprisonment Essay Example

What is the purpose of imprisonment Essay Example

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  • Pages: 4 (1022 words)
  • Published: December 4, 2017
  • Type: Analysis
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Punishment is depicted as an intense collective phenomenon driven by irrational forces. It was seen as rituals expressing the furious moral outrage of the group against those who had violated its sacred moral order.Edward Glover (1931) argued that punishment was sadistic and a displacement activity.Imprisonment is seen as an intimidating relationship between the state and the offender, which is the central image underlying many critical studies of imposing penalty.

It can also be represented as a legal procedure, a form of power, an instrument of class domination, an expression of collective feeling, a moral action, a ritual event or an embodiment of a certain sensibility.Imprisonment is society's settled means of dealing with certain needs, relationships, conflicts and problems which repeatedly recur and must be managed in an orderly and normative way if social relations are to be reasonably stabilised and dif

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ferentiated.The state uses prison as a punishment practice. The main theory of rehabilitation, deterrence and incapacitation are all embodied within the process of punishment that is incarceration behind the prison walls.

People are imprisoned based on themselves, not just the offence alone. Society would see the primary purpose of imprisonment as protecting the public by holding those committed by the courts, in a safe, decent and healthy environment, reduce crime by providing constructive regimes for prisoners, which address offending behaviour, improve educational and work skills and promote law abiding behaviour in custody after release.Prisoners are committed to prison as punishment, not for punishment. The primary focus for the term of imprisonment is to turn around offending behaviour and release individuals back into the community who will not return to crime.

A healthy prison is that which makes the

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weakest prisoners feel safe; all prisoners are treated with respect as individuals; all prisoners are busily occupied, are expected to improve themselves and given the opportunity to do so, and that all prisoners can strengthen links with their families and prepare for release.Imprisonment is based on a simple form of deprivation of liberty. In harsh and concrete terms, prison seems to express that the offence has injured, beyond the victim, society as a whole. It is an apparatus for transforming individuals. It is like a strict school, the most immediate and civilised form of all penalties.It is not just deprivation of liberty alone; it is kind of like legal detention and an enterprise solely for reforming individuals.

Therefore, imprisonment covers both the deprivation of liberty and the technical transformation of individuals.In Philadelphia, the rehabilitation of the criminal is expected not by the application of a common law, but of the relationship of the individual to his own conscience. The walls of the prison are equivalent to the punishment of the crime and the cells of the prison are equivalent to confronting the convict with himself.If rehabilitation is part of the purpose of imprisonment, then isolating the prisoner from his or her family and culture, defeats that purpose. The denial of access to simple facilities such as radio and television, or the simple right to write and receive letters, is a denial of human and social rights. Punishing a prisoner's relations by making long journeys necessary in order to see him or her is not the way to 'rehabilitate' the guilty or reconcile the innocently convicted to the current rule of law.

Prison did not force offenders to

work, it seems to have re-introduced into its very institution, by means of taxation, labour on others. The labour by which the convict contributes to his own needs turns the thief into a docile worker. The utility of penal labour imposes on the convict the 'moral' form of wages as the condition of his existence.The prison, the place where the penalty is carried out, is also the place of observation of punished individuals.Their privacy is completely taken away as they remain under constant surveillance.

The imprisonment rate has increased by 28%, rising from 117 to 151 prisoners for 100,000 members of the adult population.A report by the Social Exclusion Unit records that of those 58% of prisoners (72% young offenders) re-convicted in the two years following release, each will have received an average of three further convictions, for each of which five recorded offences are committed.This can imply that prison fails to function adequately and does not aim to fulfil what its primary purpose is if the prisoners are being convicted again.There are proven links between social exclusion and re-offending, the report recommends measures for the Prison Service to adopt to ensure a rehabilitative focus.They identify nine key factors that influence re-offending:-education-employment-drug and alcohol misuse-mental and physical health-attitudes and self-control-institutionalisation and life skills-housing-financial support and debt-family networksTherefore, the task is not to resettle prisoners in society, but to settle them for the first time.

As part of this process, the government announced, in July 2002, their proposals for new innovative sentences, and reform of short custodial sentences, to continue custody with community activity and punishment with rehabilitation.Another proposal, that of Intermittent custody, equally seeks to

strengthen family and community ties, without compromising on punishment. Under the proposal, offenders would serve their custodial sentence either at weekends or during the week, whilst the remainder of their time would be spent in the community, enabling them to continue in employment and meet family responsibilities.These significant moves towards minimising recidivism are further evident in Government proposals to act upon criticisms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

In July 2002, the Home Office issued a report receiving the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 with a view to making the act pro-active in reducing crime. The review found that the act has been limiting the prospects of the resettlement of ex-offenders, making it virtually impossible for them to put their past behind them.In conclusion, new prisons will not help deter crime and rehabilitate prisoners entirely. They will only cater to the serious problems that exist in the system and make room for new criminals.

This proposal will stop overcrowding, may help to deter crime and probably rehabilitate criminals. The only way to make the prison system work is to change it.

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