Easton & Piper: Sentencing and Punishment 2e 
DevelopmentsEaston & Piper: Sentencing and Punishment 2e
Chapter 5
Problem questions
At the end of Chapter 5 we suggested you might review the ethical and moral issues raised by the practice of sentencing for public protection, and also the justifications for a policy of selective or categorical incapacitation. To help you focus on these issues we provided a summary of the results of a recent Home Office Research Study (see below) and asked you to decide how much inaccuracy of prediction of risk can be justified on the grounds of public good.
A recent study of reconviction rates of serious sex offenders four and six years after their release from long determinate prison sentences, who were classified as high risk by the Parole Board, found the proportion reconvicted of another sexual offence during both follow-up periods was under 10% but those who were reconvicted had committed very serious offences (Hood et al 2002). The figures varied according to the type of victim. None of those imprisoned for offence against a child in their own family unit was reconvicted of a sexual or serious violent crime. Just over one-quarter of those imprisoned for a sexual offence against a child outside the family were reconvicted of another sexual offence and nearly one-third were imprisoned for a sexual or violence crime. Of those imprisoned for an offence against an adult, one in thirteen was reconvicted of an offence against an adult and one in seven was imprisoned for a sexual or violent offence within six years of release from prison. All the offenders who were reconvicted of a further sexual offence within the four-year follow up period, and all but one followed up for 6 years, had been identified as high risk or dangerous by at least one member of the Parole Board. Where no member of the Parole Board panel had identified a sex offender as high risk, only one was reconvicted of a sexual offence after 6 years.
In answering this question you need to consider what the study tells us about the difficulties in making accurate predictions of risk, and given this, whether incapacitative policies may be justified. You might also consider whether predicting future sex offences raises problems unique to those crimes or extends to other offences. This was also in issue you considered at the end of Chapter 1.
Does the empirical work discussed in Chapter 5 suggest that we can be confident in making risk assessments? What are the implications of under-estimating and over-estimating risk? If we could achieve a high degree of certainty, would incapacitation on grounds of risk then be ethically acceptable? Should individuals be detained on the basis of crimes not yet committed and which may not be committed?
In incapacitative theories the individual is sacrificed for the good of the community as a whole and you may wish to consider whether this is morally justified and how the rival theories of utilitarianism and retributivism might approach this question.
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