A non-custodial penalty is one that is served outside of a prison. This can include probation orders, community service orders, electronic monitoring or tagging and fines, to name a few. Deciding whether or not a non-custodial sentence should be imposed over a custodial one is a challenging decision for the sentencers, as there has been little research conducted looking into public reaction to the mitigating factors and any other factors that would support a non-custodial charge (Roberts & Hough, 2011). There are four broad principles that sentences are influenced by, highlighted in The Coalition: Our Programme for Government. Here, it is stated that a review of the sentencing policy must take place “to ensure that it is effective in deterring crime, protecting the public, punishing offenders and cutting reoffending” (Cabinet Office, 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to assess the effectiveness of non-custodial penalties in comparison to prison in each of these principles. First, looking at why alternatives may be necessary is needed, thus highlighting the weaknesses in prisons, and furthermore allowing a comparison to be made subsequently.
“The path of non-prison penalties is the rational path for most criminals found guilty of most crimes in order to achieve protection, recompense for the harm done and a solution that might reduce crime in the future” (Stern, 1998)
Non-prison penalties may be the most rational path due to two major problems with prisons in the UK: overcrowding and costs. In November 2015, the prison population stood at 85,163 with the Ministry of Justice approximating it to increase to 86,700 by June 2016, and increase further to 89,000 by March 2021 (prisonreformtrust.org.uk, 2015). This also has lead to concerns with the number of deaths whilst in custody, which reached 267 deaths in 2015 alone, 95 of which were self-inflicted (gov.uk, 2015). The average annual cost per prison place is £36,237 (gov.uk, 2014), with a new prison costing £60 million. This expenditure could be used more widely to help state services, such as education, with a new primary school estimated to cost £1.5 million and a new secondary school at £8 million (rethinking.org.uk, 2004). On top of this, there are low levels of confidence in the criminal justice system from the public due to it no longer being perceived as effective (Casey, 2008). This is why it is important to look into and assess alternatives.
In terms of protecting the public, there are certain offenders who can be perceived as harmful, and this is when prison is used appropriately. This is due to the protection granted to any particular victim while the offender serves their sentence. However, this can be only short term, and therefore community service can offer better long-term protection, through supervision. Certain community sentences provide extremely thorough supervision, with some probation hostels offering 24-hour observation at half the price of prison. Furthermore, prison won’t necessarily alter the offender’s behaviour and therefore when an offender is released, it cannot be said that the public is still protected. Community sentences lead people away from a criminal lifestyle as they are constantly monitored, and therefore can be seen as more effective in protecting the public in the long run. Prisoners released under parole supervision have been seen to have a smaller reconviction rate than those serving the whole sentence. According to Lord Chief Justice Woolf in 2000, “many things can be done as far as offenders are concerned without sending them to prison which actually provides better safeguards for the public” (Woolf, 2000).
Statistics show that prisons are less effective at reducing reoffending, with 45% of adults being reconvicted within one year of release (gov.uk, 2013). Statistics also show that offenders who served a sentence of less than a year had a reoffending rate of seven percentage points higher than offenders serving a community sentence (gov.uk, 2013). As mentioned previously, prison doesn’t change people’s behaviour in the same way that community sentences do, and “offenders are being released from prison unreformed, meaning too many reoffend, creating more victims of crime and a revolving door in our prisons” (Doward, 2015).
Furthermore, research has proven that factors such as no source of income, no stable place to live and addiction problems make reoffending much more likely. David Blunkett (2002) once stated, "Short custodial sentences…as opposed to community sentences for lesser offences, provide little opportunity for rehabilitation or to prevent re-offending and can make things worse. The cycle of offending behaviour is more likely to be perpetuated if offenders lose their job or their home, and their family ties are broken”. Prison does nothing to help provide offenders with a source of income, or a place to live and certainly doesn’t help with addiction problems, with prison actually causing some offenders to leave with an addiction they didn’t have before: “The problem is that 35% of those in prison have a drug addiction and 6% acquire that addiction once they are in prison, so more come out with an addiction than went in with one." (Vaz, 2013) Prisoners also have access to other prisoners inside a prison, and therefore can form gangs on the inside or take part in other crimes on the inside, such as trading contraband within the prison. Visitors can provide inmates with drugs that can be sold on within the prison by smuggling it in their clothing for example. An article in the BBC notes how a visitor handed tablets to a prisoner after reaching inside her bra, with the tables costing around £2 outside prison but inside prison could now be worth more than £40 (Thomas, 2015). Community service on the other hand can help with the problem of income, as offenders have the chance to give something back to the community whilst learning new skills or improving ones they already had, which could help them get a job afterwards. The problem of addiction is also tackled with community sentences, as an offender can be sentenced to a drug treatment and testing order (DTTO). This is when an offence is clearly due to a drug problem, and is mainly used to address the drug problem and to reduce the risk of any reoffending or harm. This is also thoroughly supervised with, testing and supervision, monitoring and treatment taking place in an office two or three times per week for 6 months up to three years.
The final principle to address is whether or not a community sentence is viewed as an effective punishment. Many people view community sentences as the ‘soft option’ and there have been cases of low completion rates and high rates of breaching. Also, people don’t fear community sentences as much as serious punishment and so therefore there isn’t much of a fear to commit a minor crime. Prison sentences are the most serious punishment that can be given and being placed inside one shows how seriously society treats crime. Community service cannot provide the same. However, others argue that “doing unpaid labour for 240 hours or any significant number of hours is a deprivation of liberty and is a serious punishment” (Lord Bingham, 1997), and the rigorous community programmes can be a lot more demanding than a prison sentence where the offenders aren’t expected to contribute anything.
To conclude, there are more and more concerns over the effectiveness of prisons in relation to the costs and how well they are achieving a sentence’s goals. Community sentences, in some cases, have been seen to lack the supervision needed to make them a more effective solution than prisons, however they have also been seen to be more effective in protecting the public and lessening reoffending rates through the use of DTTOs and harnessing skills, and, if completed appropriately, can actually be more of a punishment than prison is.