NCJ Number
199649
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 49 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2003 Pages: 179-200
Date Published
April 2003
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study assessed five models of sentencing with regard to their impact on the decisions of young offenders to recidivate.
Abstract
The sentencing models considered were deterrence, which focuses on punishment; fairness, which gives priority to making the sentence proportionate to the crime; chronic offending lifestyle, which involves addressing chronic criminal behaviors; special needs, which features responses to the special needs of offenders related to their criminal behavior; and procedural rights, which pertain to the protection of legal rights. In order to test the impact of these sentencing models on the decision of young offenders to recidivate, this study used a sample of 400 incarcerated young offenders from the Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) metropolitan area. Subjects were asked questions about their attitudes toward these various sentencing models and their intentions to recidivate after serving their incarceration sentence. In terms of the deterrent model of decisionmaking, punishment was a crucial part of many young offenders' intentions to recidivate. In contrast, chronic offending lifestyle was apparently not as important; whereas many of the youth in the sample were classified as chronic offenders, their intentions to recidivate were infrequently based on an acceptance of a chronic offending lifestyle alone. Yet the chronic offender lifestyle factor and the deterrent factor combined were strongly associated with young offenders' intentions to recidivate. Nonetheless, punishment likely dominated young offenders' decisionmaking regarding the impact of their sentences on committing future crimes. Apparently, fairness, procedural rights, and special needs factors also played a part in the decision of young offenders concerning possible recidivism. Sentencing decisions perceived to be unfair and programs addressed to individual special needs and other personal problems were relevant to the young offenders' intention to reoffend. Thus, better delivery of specialized services to youth who want them may have an impact on their intentions to recidivate. Still, more than half of the youths' perceptions about future offending were apparently largely unaffected by any of the decisionmaking models posed. This suggests that decisionmaking about recidivism may be related to their experiences after release in terms of support programs and the social and economic conditions that influence their behaviors after release. 5 tables, 3 notes, and 34 references