Certificate of Achievement
has completed the following course:
Incarceration: Are prisons a suitable punishment?
The course investigated the intended aims of imprisonment, explored conditions within prisons and some of the issues they face in holding offenders. It considered the ethical debates around whether the removal of liberty by itself is sufficient as a punishment or whether further sanctions are appropriate. It also investigated non-custodial punishments, including rehabilitation and resettlement, people's attitudes towards them and if they are a more ethical alternative to incarceration.
2 weeks, 4 hours per week
Richard Peake
Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice
University of Leeds
Transcript
Learning outcomes
- Explore the role of imprisonment as a mechanism of punishment, its legitimacy and ethical standpoint and identify its aims.
- Discuss how prisoners should be treated and what ethical considerations should be considered in deciding physical conditions of custody.
- Identify issues within the prison system, including overcrowding, drug misuse and safety.
- Compare different prison systems and evaluate which might be most effective and the most ethically sound.
- Explain the concept of rehabilitation in both changing the individual and its wider role of crime reduction.
- Explore alternative punishments to imprisonment, their effectiveness and discuss if these are ethically more acceptable than custody.
- Reflect on how custody and alternative forms of punishment are utilised with the overall aim of reducing crime.
Syllabus
- Identify the aims of imprisonment as punishment and recognise the justifications and ethical implications of subjecting individuals to custody.
- Explore prison conditions and regimes, considered in relation to punishment being solely ‘loss of liberty’.
- Identify issues facing prisons, including safety and security, overcrowding and drug misuse.
- Compare jurisdictions with different aims and objectives.
- Explore the criminal justice system: what sanctions are available and where punish and imprisonment fits.
- Examine rehabilitation as a key to reducing reconviction rates and crime by changing the individual and/or providing skills ready for release.
- Explore alternatives to custody for less serious crimes: fines, community orders and suspended sentences.
- Assess the effectiveness of such sanctions in comparison with custody.
- Discuss the extent to which rehabilitation and resettlement are key to reducing reoffending.
Recognised by
Issued on 13th February 2020
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