Problems Facing Prisons In England And Wales
Problems facing Prisons in England and Wales
Figures from the Howard League for Penal Reform state that there are currently over 80,000 people in prison in England and Wales today. The prison population has been rising steadily since 1993, increasing from 42,000 to today's unprecedented levels. England and Wales have the highest number of people in prison within Western Europe, with 148 per 100,000 of the population being imprisoned in 2006 (Walmsley 2006). The fact that prisons are heavily overcrowded has meant that several debilitating factors have occurred, such as two people being held in a cell which is designed for one, leading to them having to use unscreened toilets, which in turn means that they lose even the most basic of human …show more content…
Deakin and Spencer (2003:130) have noted that community punishment has been “viewed through a gendered lens”, and Worrall 1990 suggests that it is largely viewed as a young man's punishment. McIvor (1999) also states that there are other reasons for the under use of community punishment, such as problems with childcare and shortage of female supervisors. However, the issue of childcare would be more of a problem if the child's mother was incarcerated for a period of weeks or months, as opposed to a few hours a day which would be the case with a community punishment …show more content…
This scheme a greater focus on the rehabilitation of the offender, without overlooking the punishment part of the work carried out for local good causes. Enhanced community punishment addresses several factors of an offender's behaviour.
This includes trying to adapt their behaviour so that their attitudes and behaviour becomes positive, along with challenging any anti social ones, which include offending. The punishment also addresses poor thinking skills, and tries to teach the offender how to look at alternative ways of problem solving, and how to look at situations from other people's perspectives. The programme also aims teach valuable employment skills, such as vocational and key skills, which are essential for employability and further training.
Rex et al (2004) examined what is promising in community service, with a focus on the implementation of seven Pathfinder projects. They found that projects which focused on skills accreditation and pro-social modelling such as the enhanced community punishment scheme were promising, however, projects which focused on using community punishment work to tackle offending related needs did not appear to produce positive outcomes overall. Therefore this is one aspect which needs to be taken account of when designing effective community
Figures from the Howard League for Penal Reform state that there are currently over 80,000 people in prison in England and Wales today. The prison population has been rising steadily since 1993, increasing from 42,000 to today's unprecedented levels. England and Wales have the highest number of people in prison within Western Europe, with 148 per 100,000 of the population being imprisoned in 2006 (Walmsley 2006). The fact that prisons are heavily overcrowded has meant that several debilitating factors have occurred, such as two people being held in a cell which is designed for one, leading to them having to use unscreened toilets, which in turn means that they lose even the most basic of human …show more content…
Deakin and Spencer (2003:130) have noted that community punishment has been “viewed through a gendered lens”, and Worrall 1990 suggests that it is largely viewed as a young man's punishment. McIvor (1999) also states that there are other reasons for the under use of community punishment, such as problems with childcare and shortage of female supervisors. However, the issue of childcare would be more of a problem if the child's mother was incarcerated for a period of weeks or months, as opposed to a few hours a day which would be the case with a community punishment …show more content…
This scheme a greater focus on the rehabilitation of the offender, without overlooking the punishment part of the work carried out for local good causes. Enhanced community punishment addresses several factors of an offender's behaviour.
This includes trying to adapt their behaviour so that their attitudes and behaviour becomes positive, along with challenging any anti social ones, which include offending. The punishment also addresses poor thinking skills, and tries to teach the offender how to look at alternative ways of problem solving, and how to look at situations from other people's perspectives. The programme also aims teach valuable employment skills, such as vocational and key skills, which are essential for employability and further training.
Rex et al (2004) examined what is promising in community service, with a focus on the implementation of seven Pathfinder projects. They found that projects which focused on skills accreditation and pro-social modelling such as the enhanced community punishment scheme were promising, however, projects which focused on using community punishment work to tackle offending related needs did not appear to produce positive outcomes overall. Therefore this is one aspect which needs to be taken account of when designing effective community