Reforming Community Penalties

• NCJ Number: 211066
• Author(s): Sue Rex
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 194 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Seen as a major contribution to penal theory, this book sought the views of people interested in criminal justice about the role of community penalties, and how the theoretical underpinnings for community penalties might be strengthened.

Abstract

In further understanding and developing upon two previous theories of punishment, von Hirsch (1993) and Duff (2001) in which punishment as communication is a central feature, this book examines the role of community penalties in sentencing, arguing that they have been under-theorized and that absence of a strong intellectual framework has hampered their development in policy and practice. In an attempt to redress the deficiency, the book considers the insights of people with a stake in criminal justice, focusing on people’s understandings of particular concepts as they apply to punishment rather than their knowledge and views of how criminal justice actually works. The questions explored include: how different sanctions fit in and what should guide courts in deciding how much punishment to impose. Research participants were asked what sentencing communicates to offenders, how they see community sentences contributing to those processes of communication, and how offenders are expected to respond to the penal messages communicated to them. The book is divided into eight chapters with chapters 2 and 3 examining the communicative penal theory and its theoretical origins and recent development. The next three chapters form the core of the book, as they report the empirical findings of the study (the views of the groups interviewed and surveyed). In the final two chapters of the book, an attempt is made to draw out the main implications of the findings. The findings are likely to play a key role in aiding the development and practice of community penalties, enabling them to command greater support than has been the case, and to become a genuine alternative to the increasing use of custody in sentencing and punishment. Appendix and references