Importance of Prison and Rationales for Imprisonment in Criminal Justice System

This essay discusses the importance of prison and the different rationales for imprisonment in the criminal justice system. It also examines The Lammy Review Report, which highlights disparities in the criminal justice process and provides recommendations for equitable treatment. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for non-harsh measures and social justice in the criminal justice system.

Criminal Justice
Process

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERNCES...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The criminal justice system is the process through which crimes are detected and investigated
effectively. The persons suspected under the crime are taken into custody which is later
prosecuted in court and punished in accordance with the provisions of law. The procedure
involves stages to achieve justice. In United Kingdom the criminal justice system cover England
and Wales. Further the Ministry of Justice manages the process of system from the stage a
person is suspected till found guilty and probation if necessary (Herber, 2019).
The criminal justice involves the police, the prosecution services of Crown, the courts,
prisons and prohibition together helps in delivering criminal justice effectively and efficiently.
The criminal justice process helps to increase faith and confidence of people towards the legal
system. The essay examines the importance of prison and also the different rationales for
imprisonment in criminal justice system. Further the essay specifies The Lammy Review Report
determining the disparity in the criminal justice process accompanied by evidence in support.
MAIN BODY
The prison is an institution where the persons are confined who have been held in
custody by the concerned judiciary authority or person who have been deprived of the liberty
because of the crime. The important function of the prison is to hold the accused before the trial.
In United Kingdom one- fifth population of prisoners in the prison are not sentenced. The main
purpose of the prison is to protect the people from the violent and dangerous individuals and to
punish the offenders by depriving their liberty and freedoms which the rest of society enjoys.
Further it acts as rehabilitation which provides the offenders with the opportunity to make them
fit back into the society as law abiding citizens. The deterrence purpose helps to prevent future
crime. The prison must not only be criminal warehouse but a place to reform the offenders.
There has been controversy in respect of the voting rights of the prisoners in the UK which in
February, 2015 the court noted that the ban violates the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR) (Braswel and et. al., 2017). The issue was argued in respect of privilege right to vote for
the offenders.
If an individual commits a crime it is often assumed that the state shall be justified in
imposing punishment. Some punishment causes harm and what justifies on part of state is their
imposition of punishment in particular cases. The prison administrations shall organise

programmes and other services in accordance with the needs of the prisoners. The competent
authorities shall offer services like moral, spiritual, sports based activities in order to reintegrate
them into society (Regensburger, 2019).
THE LAMMY REVIEW REPORT determines about the disparity treatment exists in
the criminal justice process. The David Lammy MP on September, 2017 published his report
specifying the treatment and outcomes for individuals Black, Asian and Ethnic minorities
(BAME) in the criminal legal system. The report examined the racial biasness in the legal justice
system of United Kingdom. This review called CJS in order to provide impartial treatment
towards these individuals. The issue of BAME is of course not unique to England and Wales.
The prison of many European countries consist disproportionate number of people involving
racial and ethnic minorities who are over represented in the legal system. The data provides a
spotlight on the issue in respect of the disparity exist. The review focuses on the practices in the
criminal justice system ranging from convicting to sentencing. The BAME offenders receive
high prison sentence as compared to white people. The research states that white people
consumes more drug as compared to black British people. The review suggests that the judiciary
should provide evidence in response to the disparity (Bosworth, Parmar and Vázquez, 2018).
Even for BAME groups there exist lack of improvement in rehabilitation process. The
Criminal Rehabilitation Companies, the private company deals with rehabilitation process are
not providing effective services to these BAME groups. The history portrays that the BAME
children are being effected disproportionately by the criminal justice system. Even the powers to
stop and search are used ineffectively against the BAME groups. Even the black groups are
treated more harshly as compared to white people. Further the custody of BAME young
offenders rose from 25 per cent to 41 per cent despite in the failure of recording the other young
offenders. Meanwhile, in year 2006 to 2014 the evidence showed that the black defendants
pleading not guilty before Crown courts in England and Wales are more as compared to white
defendants and the reason is racial discrimination. The proportionate rate of BAME people in
reoffending is more which shows the disparity in the criminal justice process.
The Lammy review even reported that the prisoners should not be linked to terrorism
offences. As survey says only 1 percent of Muslim were convicted for such offences. The
government recognises that the prison consist disproportionate population mostly of BAME
groups accompanied by evidence of such disparity. The faith, trust and transparency affects the

prisoners into rehabilitation process and especially those who has BAME backgrounds. The
review shows that around quarter of adults in custody are BAME and if compared to other
population the prison population would be reduced by nine thousand. The staff maintains poor
relationship with the BAME prisoners. David recommend its suggestions in order to eliminate
discrimination of BAME people in the criminal justice (Frost, Huxley-Binns and Martin, 2019).
The HMPPS Youth Custody Service to work with NHS England and Welsh Government Health
and Social Services department in order to ensure equitable treatment for the BAME groups.
Also in order to increase the effectiveness of the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP), each
prison governor must ensure that there is effective forum in respect of both the officers and
prisoners. The governor must in forum ensure the effectiveness by representing both in forum
and take proper decision. These diverse forums will help to review fairness and effectiveness in
every prison. The recommendation includes HMPPS to develop performance indicators for
prisons in order to achieve equitable treatment for BAME and white prisoners. The review
showed wider picture in respect of disproportionality in the criminal justice system. The review
ensures the trust not only among the offenders and defendants but also for the BAME population
as whole.
What justifies imprisonment? Arises after the above review, the imprisonment differs
around the countries. The main aim of imprisonment shall be the reformation and social
rehabilitation of the prisoners. The prisoners shall be treated with human dignity and be focused
on the aim rather than just on punishing (Berk, Berk and Drougas, 2019). The different rationales
for imprisonment includes Retribution in which both the elements of crime which is mens rea
(guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty act) must be presented before imposing punishment. The
offenders those commit murder shall be punished harshly as compared to those who succeeded in
wounding victim. The idea is that the punishment should be imposed on those who have broken
laws. It ensures that the guilty must be punished by protecting the innocent and maintaining
societal balance. This is considered as moral justification for the punishment. The retributive
punishment portrays the individuals how to act in the society and restore balance to society.
Punishing imprints in the minds of the criminals that such conduct does not lead them towards
law abiding citizens. Thus makes criminal realise that have conducted wrong and deserve to be
punished.

Incapacitation prevents an individual from causing other harm as long individual is
under control. It is primarily used to protect the public from the offenders who are dangerous to
the society. It keeps such offenders from society for time which is achieved by sending them to
the prison. Keeping the offenders from society helps to prevent future crime. It includes house
arrest, electronic bracelets and other means of monitoring criminals. Prison is considered as
synonym for the word incarceration is used because as long an individual is incarcerated he/ she
cannot commit crime. By selective incapacitation it means holing offenders for ling time on
seeing their likelihood behaviour of recidivism (Kovner and Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2018).
Crimes can be averted through incapacitation but it depends on the effectiveness of the criminal
justice system in identifying and incarcerating such offenders from the society. The most
common justification for punishment is deterrence. It discourages the individual or groups from
committing an act. In this general deterrence refers to what is done to discourage individual or
individuals from committing crime while specific deterrence is to prevent specific person from
committing an act. Police also helps in deterring a crime and further they use strategies like hot
spot policing and sentinels. Punishment is according to the crime committed by the offender but
it is difficult to punish offenders on extreme cases. The specific deterrence aims to discourage
the evil minds by frightening an individual with the punishment. While the general prevents the
crime by frightening the public with the punishment of an individual. Thus, prevents crime by
removing the individual defendant from the society. The weakness of this theory that, it is often
not a case where human beings are rational and consider the consequences before deciding to
commit a crime.
Rehabilitation is another rationale for punishment is defined as change that led positive
result from negative behaviour. The reformative theory aims to reform the offender in order to
make individual fit in the society. The rehabilitation process is considered as treatment for the
offender to make them normal law abiding member of the society. The punishment includes
learning tool for modification in behaviour or other interventions that are not painful. The
reforms remains a rationale in many penal system which aims to address the needs and treatment
of the offenders. In short the process led to internal change brought or made by the external
agents. It led to re-education and re-train the individual who committed the crime in order to
prevent them reoffending (Gailey, 2018). Lastly, is the Reparation which refers to repairs or
amends done in return to crime committed or violation of law by the offender. Severity of

punishment differs across cultures and individuals. The process is based on idea requiring the
offenders to repair or amend the crime or harm they have done. It is justified through restitution,
reimbursement or compensation to the victims or its legal representatives as result of
victimisation. Reparation can be made to the community through paying fine etc. (Perra, 2018).
The weakness provides the burden on victim to offer forgiveness. The type of reparation include
direct reparation, in which offender provide direct benefit to the victim. For example working in
victim’s shop etc. Another is the indirect reparation, victim offer activities to offender and
requires to choose one to do. Community based reparation offers the offenders to act in the
benefit of wider community rather to the specific victim with an aim to develop their skills.
Thus, the reparation takes the form of unpaid services or work carried under the supervision of
Youth Offending Service (YOS) (Wright, 2017).
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it concluded the importance of prison and aims of punishment. The
essay evaluated the different rationales for the imprisonment. The rationale discussed above for
criminal punishment can be achieved with non-harsh measures. The main purpose of these
rationale imprisonment is to rationalise the criminal justice system. Further they focus on the
needs and treatment of the offenders in order to attain social justice. The essay discussed The
Lammy Review where the report specifies the disparity exists in the criminal justice system.
Also the review consist recommendation in respect of treatment in order to achieve equitable
treatment for offenders and prisoners in the prison.

REFERNCES
Books and Journals
Berk, R., Berk, D. and Drougas, 2019. Machine learning risk assessments in criminal justice
settings (pp. 1-178). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Bosworth, M., Parmar, A. and Vázquez, Y. eds., 2018. Race, criminal justice, and migration
control: Enforcing the boundaries of belonging. Oxford University Press.
Braswel and et. al., 2017. Justice, crime, and ethics. Taylor & Francis.
Frost, T., Huxley-Binns, R. and Martin, J., 2019. Unlocking the English Legal System.
Routledge.
Gailey, A., 2018. The racial politics of US gun policy. In The ethics of policing and
imprisonment (pp. 151-167). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Herber, E., 2019. Lay and Expert Contributions to Japanese Criminal Justice: Legal Outsiders.
Routledge.
Kovner, B. and Shalhoub-Kevorkian, N., 2018. Child arrest, settler colonialism, and the Israeli
juvenile system: A case study of occupied East Jerusalem. The British Journal of
Criminology. 58(3). pp.709-729.
Perra, A., 2018. Prevent, Muslim identity, and the normalisation of neoliberalism. Renewal: a
Journal of Labour Politics. 26(3). pp.83-95.
Regensburger, D., 2019. Criminal evidence: From crime scene to courtroom. Aspen Publishers.
Wright, S., 2017. Narratives of punishment and frustrated desistance in the lives of repeatedly
criminalised women. In New Perspectives on Desistance (pp. 11-35). Palgrave
Macmillan, London.