How Much Time Do Prisoners Actually Serve

Breaking the cycle

This Green Paper sets out plans for fundamental changes to the criminal justice system and addresses the three priorities of punishing offenders, protecting the public and reducing reoffending. It seeks to set out an intelligent sentencing framework, coupled with more effective rehabilitation. Despite a 50% increase in the budget for prisons and managing offenders in the last ten years, almost half of all adult offenders released from custody reoffend within a year as well as 75% of youth custody offenders. These proposed reforms will seek to make prisons places of hard work and industry. There will be a greater use of strenuous, unpaid work as part of a community sentence alongside tagging and curfews. There will also be a greater focus on the enforcement and collection of fines, and a much stronger emphasis on compensation for victims of crime. Six new rehabilitation programmes will be piloted on a payment by results basis. Treatment rather than prison will be the option for the less serious offenders with mental illness and drug dependency. The proposals also seek to introduce more straightforward sentencing alongside greater transparency from the courts. The publication is divided into seven chapters, covering the following areas: punishment and payback; rehabilitating offenders to reduce crime; payment by results; sentencing reform; youth justice and working with communities to reduce crime, along with two annexes.

The Effects of Prison Sentences on Recidivism

How Do Judges Decide?

The appropriate amount of punishment for a given crime is an issue that has been debated by scholars, philosophers and legal professionals since the beginning of civilizations. This book seeks to address this issue in all of its complexity by providing a comprehensive overview of the sentencing process in the United States. The book begins by discussing the overall concept of punishment and then proceeds to dissect individual aspects of punishment. Topics include: the sentencing process; responsibility of the judge; disparity and discrimination in sentencing; and sentencing reform. This book is an ideal text for introductory courses on the judicial system, criminal law, law and society. It can be an essential resource to help students understand patterns in the wide discretion and latitude given to judges when determining punishments within the framework of the United States judicial system.