Do Prisons Rehabilitate?

Do Prisons Rehabilitate?

In this essay, I shall be focusing on the whether or Prisons rehabilitate offenders. I will

do this by focusing mainly on the Prison Service in England & Wales, the reason for

this, being that the data and statistics for England & Wales are easier to obtain than

that of other countries. The main information I will be referring to will be the rates of

conviction, types of imprisonment, types of non-custodial sentences. Also I will

explore some of the current methods of offender rehabilitation.

Her Majesty’s Prison Service is composed of two main types of prisons, they are open

and closed prisons. Following the Mountbatten Report (1965) Prisoners were placed

into security categories, ranging from category A (high risk prisoner - escape would

pose a serious risk to the public or state) to category D (low risk prisoner - can be

trusted in open prison conditions).

Prisons have four major purposes, they are; retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and

rehabilitation. Retribution means punishment for crimes against society. Prisons serve

to deprive criminals of their freedom is a way of making them pay a debt to society for

their crimes. Incapacitation refers to the removal of criminals from society so that they

can no longer harm innocent people. Deterrence means the prevention of future crime,

it is hoped that bye imprisoning a criminal, it deters them from committing the crime

again and also deters others from committing crime. Rehabilitation refers to activities

designed to change criminals into law abiding citizens, and may include providing

educational courses in prison, teaching job skills and offering counselling with a

psychologist or social worker. Over many years the focus of the prison service has

switched between the four purposes, therefore at different times in history the

importance of rehabilitation has fluctuated.

“Her Majesty’s Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those

committed by the courts. Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them

lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release.”

http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/lrgtxt.asp

The above statement of purpose is that of Her Majesty’s Prison Service. As can be

seen from the statement, there seems to be a focus on incapacitation and rehabilitation.

Over many years, people’s attitude towards how to deal with prisoners has changed,

this was reflected by the Gladstone Report in 1895 which said that ‘we