Alternatives to Prison

In most criminal justice systems the majority of offenders are dealt with by means other than custody – by fines and other financial penalties, by probation or supervision, or by orders to make reparation in some practical form to the community.

The most common penalty is the fine. In 1984 in England, for instance, 42 percent of all criminal offenders (excluding motoring offenders) were fined, the same percentage were dealt with by various other means not involving custody, and 16 percent were imprisoned in one manner or another. The fine is a simple penalty that avoids the disadvantages of many other forms of sentence; it is inexpensive to administer and does not normally have the side effects, such as social stigma and loss of job, that may follow imprisonment. Fining has limitations, however. There are dangers that the imposition of financial penalties may result in more affluent offenders’ receiving penalties that they can easily discharge, while less affluent offenders are placed under burdens that they cannot sustain. Some countries, notably Sweden, solve this problem by allowing the court ere are many ways of dealing with offenders that do not involve the payment of money. One is probation, a system that takes many different forms in different jurisdictions but the essentially involves the suspension of sentence on the offender subject to the condition that he is supervised while living in the community by a probation officer and possibly agrees to comply with other requirements the court may think appropriate. Usually, if the offender complies with the probation order and commits no further crime while it is in force, no other penalty is imposed, but if he breaks the requirement of the order or commits another offence, he can be brought back before the court and punished for the original offence as well as the later one.

Offenders who are found to be suffering from mental illness may be committed to a mental hospital rather than a penal institution.to calculate the fine not in terms of a sum of money but as a number of days’ earnings.

The concept of reparation has gained in popularity in a number of jurisdictions. Under this method, the offender makes good the damage he has done through his crime, not by paying money but by providing services to the victim directly or indirectly through the community. In England this takes the form of the community service order, under which the court is empowered to order anyone who is convicted of an offence that could be punished with imprisonment to perform up to 240 hours of unpaid work for the community, usually over a period of not more than 12 months. The consent of the offender is necessary before the court can make such an order, to avoid allegations that it amounts to forced labour.

The community service order is widely judged to be a successful innovation, and several other countries have adopted systems based on the same principle. It is less expensive to administer than imprisonment, less damaging to the offender and his family, and more useful to the community.

Other alternatives to prison are based on the idea of preventing an offender from committing further offences, without necessarily confining him in a prison. The most familiar power of this kind is that of disqualifying an offender from driving a motor vehicle or from holding a driver’s license. Similar forms of disqualifications may be imposed on offenders convicted of particular types of crimes: a fraudulent company director may be disqualified from being involved in the direction of a company, a corrupt politician may be disqualified from holding public office, or a parent who sexually abuses his children may be deprived of parental authority over them.

 

Speak on the following subjects:

1. Punishment and different forms it may take.

2. The concept of punishment and the way it has been developing from primitive society up to our time.

3. Sentencing system in the Anglo-American legal tradition.

4. Capital punishment in English law before the 18^th century.

5. Application of the death penalty in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

6. The reforms undertaken in the 20^th century and their reasons.

7. The idea of imprisonment as punishment and functions of prison in different periods.

8. Fine as the main financial penalty, its advantages and disadvantages.

9. Other alternative ways of punishment.

10. The present situation in the field of punishment in Russia.

11. Your own ideas of the most effective punishment for different crimes.

III. Here is the story of a very unfortunate, irresponsible man called Mr Body. Imagine that he was stopped by the police at each and every point of the drama. Read about what happened and, after each piece of information you receive, decide what punishment he deserves.

Here are some of the sentences you might wish to hand out:

You might feel the death penalty is in order, or life imprisonment, even solitary confinement. You could put him on probation, give him community service or impose a fine – anything from &10 to &1,000. You might consider corporal punishment, a shortish prison sentence or, of course, you can make a suspended sentence. You might make him pay compensation, or would you like to see him banned from driving? No? Well, his licence could be endorsed. Or would you dismiss the case, find him not guilty of any crime, acquit him, find the case not proved?

 

1. Mr Body drank five pints of beer and five single whiskies in a pub, got into his car and drove away.

2. He did not drive dangerously but exceeded the speed limit as he wanted to catch up with a friend who had left his wallet in a pub.

3. As he was driving along, a little girl ran into the road and he knocked her down.

4. There was no way he could have stopped, drunk or sober.

5. The little girl suffered only bruises and superficial injuries.

6. Mr Body’s wife had left him only two days before.

7. Six months later, it was clear that the little girl was to suffer from after-effects of the accident and would stutter for many years.

8. Mr Body had never previously received any summons for traffic offences.

9. The little girl admitted that it was her fault.

10. The passenger in Mr Body’s car was killed outright as he went through the windscreen.