Recent developments

Deterrence and sentencing

The riots in England in the summer of 2011 led to a renewed focus on deterrence by the public and the judiciary. The issue was whether and to what extent the context of offending should influence sentencing levels in terms of both retribution and deterrence. In R v Blackshaw and others [2011] EWCA Crim 2312 Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, endorsed deterrence as a justification of severe sentences and stressed that sentences should be designed to deter others from similar criminal activity.

The certainty of punishment

The absence of a strong police presence on the streets was also seen as a significant element in the continuing disorder in UK cities in the summer of  2011.

Research on perceptual deterrence was conducted by Kennedy in North Carolina and found that where it was made very clear to drug dealers in a community that they would be arrested and punished this did affect their activities. 

See: Kennedy, D.M. (2009) Deterrence and Crime Prevention, Reconsidering the prospect of sanction. London, Routledge.

4.1.1. Policy trends p.113 fn 3

Some changes made - or to be made - by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 increase, arguably, the focus on outcome of sentence. The following provisions might be see as having a utilitarian element: sections 1 (youth rehab order), 9 (sentencing aims for young offenders), 39 (youth default orders which will enable a court to impose an unpaid work requirement, curfew requirement or attendance centre requirement on a young offender in lieu of an unpaid fine), and 98 (violent offender order).

For example, by s 102(1) the court can include in a violent offender order

'prohibitions, restrictions or conditions preventing the offender—
(a) from going to any specified premises or any other specified place (whether at all, or at or between any specified time or times);
(b) from attending any specified event;
(c) from having any, or any specified description of, contact with any specified individual'.

This reveals a focus on incapacitation and regulation rather than a (purely) proportionate and retributivist response. The new orders aimed at minors also reveal a utilitarian focus on rehabilitative and restorative aims.

4.4.1 Does deterrence work? pp. 133-4

One problem in interpreting evidence is that it is often not sufficiently clear why people re-offend. A useful new publication has been issued on re-offending statistics and analysis. It also gives analysis of reconviction of prisoners based on a longitudinal survey, Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction, which considers prisoners’ early life experiences, accommodation, education and employment, substance use, and mental health needs.

Reoffending rates
           
The latest information on re-offending rates for adults discharged from custody or who start a court order under probation supervision between January and March and who are reconvicted at court within one year shows a reconviction rate of 40.1%.  The re-offending rate for juveniles who received a reprimand or warning, leave custody, or start a court order, is 37.3%. A comparison was made of short custodial sentences (less than 12 months) and court order commencements under probation supervision. This found that court orders were more effective than short custodial sentences in reducing one year re-offending rates. A cognitive behaviour programme Enhanced Thinking Skills also reduced the one year reconviction rate.

Types of offenders

Data based on the sample of prisoners surveyed for the Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction found that reconviction rate were higher for prisoners who reported seeing violence in the home as a child, who had been expelled or excluded from school. 79% of offenders who were homeless before entering custody had higher reconviction rates within one year. The survey confirmed that prisoners were less likely than the general population to have worked before entering custody and more likely to have been homeless. 81% of the sample reported using drugs before entering prison. The highest reconviction rates were found in the sample for those who had were poly-drug users in the  4 weeks before entering custody (Poly drug used means using Class A and B drugs, or Class A and C, or  A, B, and C drugs.  Juveniles receiving a reprimand or warning had a higher proven offending rate than adult offenders receiving a caution. 17% of offenders said that they had been treated or counselled for a mental health or emotional problem in the year before their imprisonment.

Ministry of Justice, Compendium of reoffending statistics and analysis, Ministry of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 4 November 2010.