The aims of custodial sentencing - Forensic Psychology

The aims of custodial sentencing:

1. Deterrence: the unpleasant prison experience is designed to put the offender off committing further crime and put other people off criminal behaviour by showing them the negative consequences.
2. Incapacitation: the offender is removed from society to prevent them from reoffending – it’s used a means of protecting the public. [The need for this depends on the nature of the crime – for example, society should be protected from rapists and murders, but not an elderly women who refuses to pay her council tax]
3. Retribution: this focuses on the feelings of the victim/the victim’s family, by making the offender pay ‘an eye-for-an-eye’ : the level of suffering should be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime.
4. Rehabilitation: this has the aim of changing the offender into a better person (via treatment programmes ect) so that, upon release, they are better adjusted and ready to take their place back in society.