Ethical Dilemmas Surrounding Sentencing Practices in the UK

This paper explores the ethical dilemmas surrounding sentencing practices in the UK, focusing on the increasing prison population, the cost of incarceration, and the specific needs of vulnerable groups. It examines the challenges of ensuring fairness and ethical treatment for prisoners with mental disabilities, physical disabilities, and those belonging to racial, ethnic, and indigenous minority groups. The paper also discusses the need for effective rehabilitation programs and the importance of addressing the issue of reconviction.

Ethical dilemmas surrounding sentencing
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Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................3
Discussion..........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................10
Reference list...................................................................................................................12
Appendix..........................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
The consideration of ethical issue in legal practices is growing significantly. It is
observed that people belonging to various groups face major dilemma in serving jail
terms. The increasing number of prisoners is also becoming a major trend and concern
and this is enhancing the financial investment required for managing prisoners. This
scenario has made it mandatory for analyzing major dilemmas surrounding sentencing.
The following section would elaborate the issues that can occur due to the
implementation of sentencing practices.
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Discussion
The main objective of punishment in modern society is to reduce criminal incidents, and
make the society a better place to live. However, many perceive the legal processes as
futile and hostile that can ultimately bread more harmful people for society. Some
people think that the practices of just sentencing a criminal offender are not proving
sufficient for making the person a better human being. Some inmates have stated that
no rehabilitation practices are initiated in a jail and in most of the time of a day they just
spend time seating ideally (Roberts and Rafferty, 2011). It is being mentioned by a
prisoner that just after the release from prisons, the person has found the urge for doing
crime again. According to most of the inmates, the current practices are more like a
torture and less like rehabilitation.
Reducing the level of criminal incidents is the main motto of sentencing. The legal
system of English and Wales therefore emphasizes on the fact that sentencing must
reflect the nature and type of crime committed by the offender. It should also be
proportionate with the density of crime committed by the offenders. The legal system of
English and Wales has a “Sentencing Council” that governs the systems and procedure
of sentencing across England and Wales (Ashworth and Roberts, 2013).
The Sentencing Council forms guidelines that are to be followed by courts. The
Criminal Justice Act 2003 governs the role of judges and magistrates in sentencing
offender for a crime. One of the key factor that is redefined by this act is that, the
number of sentences defines the density of guild of the offender. According to this act,
the relevance among offences has to be identified. The judge bears the role of
identifying the relevance and allocating sentences according to that.
One of the major guideline that is made for the magistrates is the consideration of the
implications and well and effects of mitigating factors along with aggravating factors.
Some of the factors that are suggested to be considered as high culpable cases are
highly intoxicated person, large quality drug and alcohol supplier, and some others
(Roberts, 2013).
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There is the guideline for magistrates that they should first form a preliminary view of
the sentence that should be considered as the most appropriate sentence. The next
guideline is of considering offender mitigation. It is instructed that the magistrate must
consider the redaction of guilty plea. A major implication of the guidelines is the
consideration of the most possible ways for solving the dilemma in the best interest of
both the common mass and that of the legal authority.
The “Reduction in Sentence for a Guilty Plea, revised 2007” policy instructs that in
order to recognize the guilty plea of an offender, punitive elements of the sentence
should be considered. The consideration of ancillary orders should necessarily include
compensation (Barkow, 2012). In such cases where the crime or the offence have
resulted into compensable situations like the victim have faced severe industry, or lose
of property, the court must instruct the convict to compensate either in monetary or in
non monetary way.
One of the major policies for sentencing, that magistrates and judges have to abide by,
is the consideration of Mental Health Act 1983. A person with mental disability does not
get the same sentences. The increasing scenting trends not only results into the
creating dilemmas but also enhances the costs for operations. It is observed that the
number of prisoners is increasing significantly. Back in 1992 to 1993 the population of
people service sentences in jails was an average of 44,628. This number has
witnessed a sharp rise over the past years and now it stands at 85000. This scenario
indicates the trend of expanding prison numbers and the trend of increasing frequency
in the number of sentencing people to jail terms. Currently the number of prisoners has
become more than 85000.
Another trend is the increasing use of custody that has witnesses a surge over the past
years. From a mere of 49 percent in 1993 to 60 percent, the use of custody is
increasing significantly. The number of offenders that have been subjected to life time
imprisonment have doubled within the time period of 1993 to 2003 (Boylan-Kemp,
2014). However, this surge in number of prisoners have a core impact on the believe
and perceptions of people. The more people are getting punished the more people are
becoming confident about the legal system. This surge in the number of sentencing
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making people believes that the legal system is taking effective action against the
offenders. This also has another positive side. The increasing number of punishments
and sentencing make people abide by the laws and retain from doing any criminal
activities.
It is not an easy task to manage such prisons and the bulging number of people serving
jail terms. Nearly 170,000 euro is required for building a new prison. This also involves
maintenance cost. The cost required for keeping prisoner is as huge as 45,000 dollar
per year.
Another major trend that have come into the scenario is the trend of reconviction. Most
of the prisoners, nearly two third of them were reconvicted just within a mere of two
years of their leaving the jail (Bowman, 2013). It has been estimated by The National
Audit Offices that reconviction of people and their coming back to the prison costs a
taxpayer between 9.5 billion euro to 13 billion euro each year.
Several risks are associated with this scenario and effective risk management
strategies should be adapted for dealing with such situations (Sales, 2011). For
example, the risk of reoffending is increasing and this is further increasing the number
of prisoners who are serving jail terms due to reconviction.
It has been noted that most of the prisoners spend most of the times in their prison
terms without doing anything. No initiatives related to rehabilitation are undertaken.
Thus the prisons have become mere a closed and restricted shelf for criminals rather
than a rehabilitation center.
It has been suggested by several theorist as well as former inmates that the
rehabilitation would have to initiated (Fischman and Schanzenbach, 2012). Intervention
of therapists and a better community punishment can come as aid to this scenario.
It is the duty of the court to judge the density of the offence and the issues of
seriousness and severity. The judge and magistrates must consider the offences that
should be given bail. The judge would have to consider depth of crime and verify the
range of sentences that the sentencing guideline has recommended (Elliott and Quinn,
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2013). The court must consider the details of each often for assessing the depth of the
crime. Judges and magistrates must also consider mitigating features of an offence.
Several amendments and rectifications are made in the current policies and acts in
order to make the procedure of sentencing ethical and in order make sure that people
are getting sentenced in such cases that are not severe. According to the Section 152
of “The Criminal justice Act 2003” , it is mandatory for judges to make sure that only
such offences are getting custodial sentenced that extremely serious and any kind of
fine or small punishments like community sentence is a justified solution for such
offences. Another major policy is the Prison and Penal policy that has governs the
prison and penal codes.
Mandatory life sentences should be given in such cases that are not forgivable at all
and are extremely severe in nature. Mandatory life sentences are given in cases of
murder, however based on the seriousness and severity, the punishment has to be
given.
Costs is one of the major concerns and part of sentencing. The more is the number of
person being sentenced each year, the more is the cost for maintaining and keeping the
prisoners. Direct resource expenditure for an average population of 6325 was 164,
793,339 in 2014 to 2015. During the same period the cost per place was nearly 26000
while the cost per prisoner is nearly 25000. This immense amount of expenditure, that
goes in maintaining and managing prisoners (Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2018).
The expenditure is not limited to the food and lodge services of the prisoners only. They
also include the expenditure for human resources. A huge number of personnel are
recruited for maintaining prisons. considerable investment are required for the payroll of
positions like Prison officer, Forensic psychologist, Instructional officers, Healthcare
professionals, Chaplaincy, Operational support, Catering, building and allied trades and
Managerial roles. The salary of a prison officer is £17,921 (prospects.ac.uk, 2018).
The other job roles are also high salaried job roles. More prisoners require more stuff to
manage them. Costs for trial and proceeding in crown court are also huge. The judicial
salaries and fees are also high. The best paid judicial figure in Britain gets nearly
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250000 every year. Each trial and proceeding also costs hugely. Therefore, such cases
that takes effective time to be resolve requires immense financial resources.
Consideration should be made regarding the Particular groups and their possible
issues, in order to enhance ethics in judicial practices, specifically in sentencing. The
court and the government of UK should consider the situation of diffident types of
groups and the possible issues that such individual groups may face.
The current legislations, rights and policies that centers around the provision of
ethical needs to the prisoners are International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the
Treatment of Prisoners and some others. Such standers and policies are applicable in
international legal systems (Janulevičienė and Rackevičienė, 2011).
Several types of groups are there that requires special supports and exceptions. The
largest group among them is the prisoners with mental disability. The first issue that
prisoners belonging to such group face is the access to justice. Due to their mental
disability that can remain unaware of the rights that they can have and the legal rights.
They may become unable to get access to legal rights and legal advices without proper
assistance. It is observed that, in most of the cases, a mental patient do not get the
support of people for speaking in their behalf. The death or lack of attachment with won
people may result into the changes of getting any support of legal help.
Another major dilemma that such prisoners face is the health issues. Mental patients
may require more adequate nutrition and sanitation. Availing such benefits in a prison is
difficult. In order to build more ethical environment, it is essential to provide them with
proper sanitization and health benefits. It is observed that in most of the prisons, the
authority fail to maintain the required prison environment. The poor ventilation and
unsanitary prison chambers may lead to making the situation more difficult. In place of
rehabilitation, it would result into torturing the prisoners and bringing undesirable
consequences for them (Comer, 2017). The unhealthy prison environment may create
several mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety and stress, which is completely
unethical. It has been observed that the lack of proper environment brings grave
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consequences often as grave as death and suicide. it is estimated that the rate of
suicide in a prison is 2.5, this is nearly 15 times of the general populations. In most of
the cases, it is observed that self harming behaviors of the prisoners become one of the
major characteristics before they finally commit suicide. For every suicide there is are
60 incidents of self harming behavior observed (Markowitz, 2011).
The prisoners that suffer from deteriorating mental health are vulnerable to harassment
and discriminatory behavior from the inmates. They hardy have the sense of sexual
harassment and the physical torture. As they do not have the ability to understand
situation and the way they can deal with such issues, in most of the cases such
incidents remain unnoticed. They hardly get rid of such day to day torturous situations.
A prisons authority must take care of such situations as they have to deal with such
satiations in the most effective manner in order to solve ethical dilemma.
This scenario is not only applicable in the case of offenders who are serving sentence
but also is applicable in the case of offenders who are going thorough court trials and
legal proceeding (Wilson et al., 2014). Due to mental disability, they may not be able to
voice their concerns and speak on their own behalf and therefore this may deteriorate
the situation of the person and may not get proper judgment.
The dilemma that such people face is also witnessed in the case of people belonging to
other groups. Prisoners with physical disability are prone to abuse and violence like that
of prisoners with mental disability. They may also get affected by abusive behavior of
people with whom they share their imprisoned state. People with physical and other
kind of disabilities may also not get proper access to justice (Cownie et al., 2013). Such
prisoners require proper medical support and checkups. It is observed that unjust
medication is increasing significantly throughout UK and other nations. This is
completely unethical as such wrong practices can further worsen the condition of a
prisoner.
Due to certain harsh legislations and the biased approaches, people belonging to racial ,
ethical and ingenious minority groups are disadvantaged and do not get proper
support in the criminal justice system. If such people get detained, they continuously
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face the dilemma of getting proper support and benefit from the legal advisors and
system. They face several discriminatory attitudes and sometime also face linguistic
barrier. The lack of interpretation services for people who do not understand the
minority languages, may disadvantage them in trial proceeding. They may not be able
to voice their perceptions and convey what they want to. One major unethical issue that
can in the smearing of dealing with such incidents where the minority is the accused
person, is that the entire proceeding starts going against the minor, resulting into
disproportionate severe sentences. Such incidents are overlooked and create loopholes
in justice system (Roberts, 2013).
Another major ethical concern that is witnessed in the case of such people, is the
inability of the overrepresented group for affording for the surveys that are required to
get bail. The inequality of application of diversion for prosecution as well as the
presentence report that are made under the authority of probation services affects the
justice of such people. Helping such people belonging from the minority background is a
major need of this group of people. They definitely wants to speak people on their
behalf and have access to proper legal advices.
The types of discrimination that such members face in imprisonment are physical as
well as verbal abuse by the prison mate staffs and members. They often become the
subject of humiliating remarks, beating, hate speech and other extremely discriminatory
(Boylan-Kemp, 2014). Therefore, the major need that these people belonging to the
minority group has is the need for avoiding discriminatory attitude. They are subjected
to discriminatory attitudes like classification, accommodation issues as non minors
sometime do not want to share their sells with minors, unjustified searching procedure
and some others.
Young offenders also have different mental and physical requirements. The legal
system of English and Wales has different regulations and acts for dealing with cases
where the young adolescence and teenagers are the offenders. They have different
metal and physical needs and retaining them in a closed and unhealthy environment
may result into creating more harmful citizen. It is observed that such offenders become
more violent when they come out of the jail. In most of the cases young offenders get
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sentence due to cases related to over consumption of addictive drugs and alcohols.
Such young people suffer mental pressure and therefore forcing them to stay in a far
darker and worse condition can lead to making them more social threats ( Sales, 2011).
Therefore, such need for such prisoners is a better environment and rehabilitation
practices that can actually rehabilitate them. They have more recreational need than
that of others and therefore the prison authority must provide them with timely
recreation.
Woman is also another group that become victim of sexual harassment and other
discriminatory practices. The legal body of England and the sentencing policies should
consider such ethical dilemma. Only the elimination of such issues can give the
common mass complete trust on the sentencing practices and help in minimize crime
incidents.
Conclusion
The above section provides a critical and beneficial understanding of the dilemmas
surrounding sentencing practices. It also provides current scenario of the sentencing
practices in UK. It is observed that the number of sentencing is increasing significantly.
This is on one hand increasing the confidence of people over legal system, on the other
hand costing significant amount of investments for managing the prisons and initiating
trails. This study also provides information regarding the varying needs of people under
imprisonment. Venerable groups, elderly people, disabled people, woman and people
belonging to the minority group face several unethical issues during serving
imprisonment. Such unethical issues should be removed and further emphasis should
be given to rehabilitation in order to achieve the objective of sentencing.
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Reference list
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Barkow, R.E., 2012. Sentencing Guidelines at the Crossroads of Politics and
Expertise. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, pp.1599-1630.
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control. Aggression and violent behavior, 16(1), pp.36-44.
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prospects.ac.uk, (2018). [online] Available at:
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Appendix
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