Non Custodial

Are non-custodial sentences ‘soft’ on crime?

Tutor: Susy Menis
Student Urfan Azad
Date submitted: 04/02/2013

Introduction
At the beginning of time crime has been used for many purposes, by religious rulers, governments and you usual criminal, but who decides what crime is? Who lays down the laws, who say this is a crime. In this essay I will be answering the questions regarding custodial sentence are they soft or not but to answer this question you need to know the crime itself, and also the law in place for this crime.
I also will be giving many references from academic studies and anecdotally, case studies of individuals who I know will be used because I feel this is fit for purpose due to the fact they have had such custodial sentences mentioned in this module.
Crime Prevention
Crime prevention can be seen to be both disarmingly and simple and bewilderingly complex. The disarmingly simple side relates to the prosaic, obvious, every day, common sense measures that are routinely and widely taken to minimize threats of victimization. They include avoiding seemingly threatening people and places, watching out for danger, trying to protect property from predators and keeping an eye open for those dear to us. The disarmingly simple side relates to the popular notion that sufficiently severe punishment with either deters or incarcerates wicked offenders (1). Now we need to understand the importance of prevention when it comes to wicked offenders in cross reference to the question of the module, this is my first point on how to determine if non-custodial sentencing is soft on crime or not, for example I work with clients who are heroin addicts and have done for many years.
These clients I work with need to support their habit on a daily bases, to support this many of them will commit crime daily, some will get away with the crime and some will get arrested, the media will show these individuals are criminals and the public with feel that these individuals need to be off the streets and incarcerated and maybe these individual are looked upon as wicked offenders. These individual will end up in prison but many have told me anecdotally “that most of us end up on a drug free wing and they contain the most drugs” now this may be hard to believe but reports such as ‘Breaking the circle’ by community group Drug Text proves this notion to be true. The report continue by even indicating that the rampant dealing of drugs in their environment, the widespread prescribing of drugs by prison medical officers, the acceptance by prison officers of cannabis dealing and use as a sedation measure, the lack of anything approaching an open access counselling and treatment service inside (2).
Working with prisons is also very difficult, my experience as a community worker is that the politics and competition which go on in prison is overwhelming to say the least. Prison staff feel threaten or challenge I even had that we were ‘stepping on their toe’ when we were given access which took several months. This I find hard to understand, the goal for the line of work we are in should be the same and that is to help individual who are at the most vulnerable, trying to kick their habit and because of politics and bureaucracy they are not getting the most help they can access.
Looking at the module question if non-custodial sentencing is soft on crime, looking at custodial sentence for drug service users it seems that something needs to be in place and I am not ruling out that for some custodial sentences may work, but majority of them seems to be on a carousel going around and around one need to think about what type of prevention is this and ones need to think is prevention better then cure when it comes to individual with addiction I will highlight good practice in the next paragraph which is about what help is out there for non-custodial sentencing.
Intervention
There are many different types of intervention or key tools for controlling offenders in the community, starting with community orders or unpaid work to electronic tagging – so what are they are, and do they work I will be examining these intervention in this essay and also some intervention which work but are not recognised.
Firstly and one of the most common intervention is Probation supervision, this is when an offender must attend meeting with a probation officer to discuss about achievement, progress or any goals met which have been set on previous meetings.
Unpaid work or Community sentencing this involves the offender giving back to the community, this can be unpaid work in the form of gardening, paint and decorating or carpentry usually the amount of hours is between 80 and 300hours. Curfews, the courts will issue a curfew orders for the offenders to stay at he/she residents address at fix times, these curfew are sometime enforce by electronic tagging (3), which is attached to the ankle. In the case that the offender is not at the fixed address given the authority will be notified immediately by the remote tag and the offender will be found and it will be the discretion of the authority of what to do in each case. Drug and Alcohol treatment orders is when the courts will give an offender, due to his addiction a treatment programme to reduce the dependencies, I have personal been involved in delivering on these orders.
Soft sentencing and programme which I mentioned above sometime fail on scrutiny by the media and the public, the judiciary system is constantly being put under the radar of the media, many press headlines which condemn a judge or magistrate, for example for handing down a “soft” sentence The truth is that the judiciary is accountable, but in a different manner. The reason for this difference is a fundamental feature of our constitution going to the very heart of our democracy. The difference stems from the need to ensure that judges are impartial and independent of central and local government and from pressures from the media, companies, and pressure groups while exercising their judicial functions. That need is also reflected in the constitutions of all democratic countries.
Rehabilitation
Looking back at some of these orders, ones must ask how useful are these orders after all these interventions have been around for many years, the National Probation Service was established in April 2001(5). “A period of two or three years under a probation officer has saved thousands of people from becoming thoroughly bad…For that reason I believe that probation has prevented crime more than any form of punishment. It might be argued that the world at large regards the offender who has been placed on probation as one who has got off scot free and that, therefore, probation is no deterrent. That was true in the past, and may be true now, but becomes less true as the public gets to know what is required of probationers.” Alfred Nick, JP, of Thames magistrate’s court, writing to the Home Office (4). Also Ministry of Justice have many programmes in place for rehabilitation, such as ARV (Alcohol Related Violence Programme) An alcohol programme which aims to reduce alcohol related violent offending. This medium intensity cognitive behavioural group programme is designed for hazardous drinkers (i.e. NOT severely dependant drinkers) in custody for alcohol related violence. It challenges the way individuals think towards drinking and violence, examines lifestyles and decision making, primarily (but not exclusively) in younger men (6). ASRO (Addressing Substance Related Offending) – A drug and alcohol cognitive behavioural intervention designed to assist offenders address drug and alcohol related offending and to reduce or stop substance misuse (7).
Mechanisms of social control can be formal or informal. Formal social control includes the criminal justice system, involving the police, courts and prisons. Informal social control consists of mechanisms which are not based upon formal rules but are carried family, friends and member of the society every day (8). Formal social control is, in one word, laws. You are prevented from killing, stealing, and other unjust or inappropriate actions because if you commit these crimes, you will suffer formal prosecution and punishment. Similarly, parents grounding or punishing their kids is an example of formal (perhaps semi-formal) control. Informal social control is more difficult to label. Here 's an example - John lies all the time and his friends are fed up with it, so every time he tells a lie, his friends stop talking to him. Eventually, John will stop lying (assuming he wants to keep his friends). In this case, not talking was the informal social control. Other examples might include gossip, humour, or mockery.
Overall it is very hard to put a statistic on such intervention do they work or do they not some orders can be soft depending on the nature of the crime, certainly I believe that drug and alcohol orders definitely need to be improved working in such field myself. Offenders who commit violent crime should be in prisoned, so it varies on what type of crime is committed, I certainly feel that the Police can do a lot more in terms of working alongside community groups. Statutory service like which I have mentioned in this essay need to be transparent and work along groups. I have had first-hand experience in many drug orders failing, why because of the lack of interest in helping and more of an interest in government set indicators.

References.
1.Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety by ProfessorNick Tilley (Editor) -, Willan Publishing (UK), 2011
2. [Online], Available:http://www.drugtext.org/Prison-probation/breaking-the-circle.html [04 Feb 2013].
3. [Online], Available:http://www.london-probation.org.uk/what_we_do/community_order.aspx[04 Feb 2013].

4. [Online], Available:http://www.dorset-probation.gov.uk/history-of-probation-work/63-history-of-probation-work [04 Feb 2013].

5. [Online], Available: http://www.dorset-probation.gov.uk/history-of-probation-work/63-history-of-probation-work[04 Feb 2013].

6. [Online], Available:http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-in-detail/jud-acc-ind[04 Feb 2013].

7. [Online], Available:http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-in-detail/jud-acc-ind[04 Feb 2013].

8. [Online], Available: http://www.studymode.com/essays/Formal-And-Informal-Social-Control-410132.html[04 Feb 2013].

References: 1.Handbook of Crime Prevention and Community Safety by ProfessorNick Tilley (Editor) -, Willan Publishing (UK), 2011 2. [Online], Available:http://www.drugtext.org/Prison-probation/breaking-the-circle.html [04 Feb 2013]. 3. [Online], Available:http://www.london-probation.org.uk/what_we_do/community_order.aspx[04 Feb 2013]. 4. [Online], Available:http://www.dorset-probation.gov.uk/history-of-probation-work/63-history-of-probation-work [04 Feb 2013]. 5. [Online], Available: http://www.dorset-probation.gov.uk/history-of-probation-work/63-history-of-probation-work[04 Feb 2013]. 6. [Online], Available:http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-in-detail/jud-acc-ind[04 Feb 2013]. 7. [Online], Available:http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-in-detail/jud-acc-ind[04 Feb 2013]. 8. [Online], Available: http://www.studymode.com/essays/Formal-And-Informal-Social-Control-410132.html[04 Feb 2013].