Rehabilitation Of Offenders In British Criminal Justice System Criminology Essay

Rehabilitation Of Offenders In British Criminal Justice System Criminology EssayThe modern mean solar day criminal justice dodge in Britain is ge atomic number 18d at the rehabilitation of offenders so the prison system is not only a means of incarceration to remove the offender from posing any risk of infection to the habitual, only when also a vehicle for preparing the offender for release and re-integration into nine.The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (which has been revise by the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008) prunes out the criteria for dealing with risky offenders and is important to the motor hotel for sentencing purposes. Dangerous offenders atomic number 18 identified by reference to the committee of specified violent and sexual offences set out in Schedule 15 of the Criminal Justice Act. That Act says that a court must de nameine whether there is a significant risk to members of the humankind of serious harm by the commission by him of further offences (Criminal Justice Act, S 229). In a recent case the Court of spell held that in determining dangerousness the court was not confined to considering only admissible evidence and could consider, as it did in the case, an alleged history of violence although the offender did not have convictions (R v Considine and Davis, 2007). Public protection was raise under the Criminal Justice Act by the introduction of a sentence of imprisonment for public protection which ensures that certain offenders atomic number 18 not released until the Parole Board determines that it is safe to do so.Problems arise because although the term dangerous offender is used in a usual way it is in fact exceedingly difficult to predict who is dangerous as respective(prenominal)s transfigure in their behaviour. Not only do individuals vary as between each other so that there are differing degrees and shades of dangerousness but also, on an individual rear, the scope for carrying out dangerous and violent ac ts may vary on a routine basis. The notion of dangerousness is therefore extremely complex in itself and is capable of rouseing on an individual basis whereby assessing and predicting future behaviour can be compared to attempting to mould soft sand into a permanent form. valet de chambre nature can be funda cordially and inherently unpredictable even among stable law unchanging individuals, so when mentally unstable people are added to the melting pot, the decision as to assessing their dangerousness becomes more complex. In the UK, policies addressing those with dangerous and severe personality disorders (DSPD) has expanded considerably in recent years against a minimise that people with personality disorders should not be precluded from accessing services available to the rest of society. The DSPD programme deals with patients who have the virtually severe personality disorders. The DSPD programme offers an intensive multi disciplinary treatment programme based on individual need and comprising a cognitive-behavioural group-based intervention approach with opportunities for social interaction, in ward-based conjunction meetings for example. Specific treatment includes offence-specific groups, such(prenominal) as sex offender group and violence reduction programmes. There has been a shift of policy from placing people with DSPD in prisons into secure hospitals with the National Health Service taking a more fighting(a) role in providing treatment. A smaller number of medium secure and community places have been programmed, but so far the implementation has fallen behind target and the rehabilitation of DSPD patients back into the community clay extremely challenging. Evaluation of the DSPD programme is a work in progress and the impact of this policy on reoffending rates remains to be deduced. Persons assessed as having DSPD must be detained for treatment and discharge from detention is qualified upon a test of public safety as against favourable re sponsiveness to treatment. The link between dangerous behaviour and mental illness remains embedded in public opinion despite the attempts of mental health practitioners to highlight the absence of such a connection. A study of public opinion towards schizophrenic disorder found that 70% of respondents view this group as dangerous (Crisp et al, 2001). Regarding treatment in the community adjacent release from prison or hospital, Leung cites the European judgment of W v Sweden 1988, in which compulsory practice of medicine on discharge from hospital was not a deprivation of liberty and would not impinge obligate 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Leung, 2002).Prison universe of discourse has increased dramatically everywhere the last fifteen years from circa 43,000 at the start of the 1990s (Home Office, 2005a) to in excess of 80,000 today. Although there are numerous reasons given to explain this startling increase, the focus of the public on dangerousness is one suc h explanation. In 2006 a review was conducted which cl submited that prison was the best place for dangerous offenders as it stopped them from re-offending (Home Office, 2006a, p. 32). In 2007 with the creative activity of the Ministry of Justice the preceding approach to detaining dangerous offenders for a long time did not change. On the contrary, the impertinently formed Ministry reiterated that prison places are available to protect the public from dangerous offenders (Ministry of Justice, 2007, p 4).The 1990s immersion with public protection shaped the policies of protecting the public from the risk of serious harm arising from violent offenders and the aim of responding more effectively to the risk of paedophiles and the increase in child sex abuse (Grubin, 1998)Within the UK the population is generally extremely fearful of the level of violent and sexual crime (Ditton Farrell, 2002 Kemshall, 2003). The focus on this pillow slip of crime has been exacerbated by the media and even when crime rates are shown to be falling, the public perception is that they are living in a more violent society. Dangerousness has therefore been widely used to describe an change magnitude amount of offences and has been accompanied with an expectation of more punitive sentences to deal with the increase. Barbara Hudson asserts that there has been a significant shift from doing justice to controlling risks as the goal of law and order and penal strategies (Hudson, 2002 p 101). The modern society is characterised by the increasing scope and influence of the bargain media. The far reaching scrutiny of the global mass media means that the negatives of modern society are reported and in terms of criminal justice, its failings can be exposed. Such exposure is accompanied by cynicism towards expert opinions and the positive effects of legislation ( assortment, 2000).Garland (2001, p178) has depict the space between the community and prisons as having become more strictly en forced stating that Those offenders who are released into the community are subject to much tighter control than previously and conditions that continue to restrict their freedom.the community into which they are released is actually a closely monitored terrain, a supervised space, lacking much of the liberty that one associates with shape life.Commenting on a Panorama programme broadcast in 2006, HM Chief Inspector of Probation state he thought the programme made a fair point when he said that general talk of close supervision and monitoring of offenders can give a misleading impression to the public of the extent of measures taken to prevent them (Bridges, 2007).It is clear in the early stages of this essay that there are opposite views on the nature and extent of monitoring to which dangerous offenders are subjected on their release from prison. Academics like Garland above consider the measures stringent, tantamount to imprisonment within the community, whereas the enforcers o f those measures, probation workers, maintain that it is unhelpful to make it sound as if community service is prison in the community which it plainly is not (Bridges, 2007 p 4).