Reforming Community Penalties

This book is about community penalties, their rationale and the implications of the finding of this book for their change and reform. It sets out to explore the role of community penalties in sentencing, arguing the absence of a strong intellectual framework or underpinning has hampered their development in policy and practice.The research undertaken for this book involved asking people with a particular stake in criminal justice what the point of punishment was and what the courts were trying to achieve in sentencing offenders. It identifies the role of communication as crucial, and looks at ways in which 'communication' can be used to make punishment more constructive, exploring the role of restorative processes and considering the implications of the custody-community provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

Sue Rex is Senior Policy Officer at the Home Office, and formerly Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge.

List of tables

vii

Acknowledgements

viii

1 Introduction: researching communicative penal theory

1

(6)

Why penal communication?

1

(1)

Insights from stakeholders

2

(2)

Outline of book

4

(2)

Conclusions

6

(1)

2 Communicative theory - origins, evolution and application to communicative penalties

7

(24)

Introduction

7

(1)

A recent history of community penalties

8

(4)

Blurred boundaries: a 'customised' community order or custody plus/minus

12

(3)

Re-framing punishment as communication

15

(4)

Applying a communicative perspective to community penalties

19

(1)

Restorative justice

20

(4)

Replacing or reforming criminal justice?

24

(2)

Moving from theory to communication on the ground

26

(1)

Conclusions

27

(1)

Notes

28

(3)

3 Seeking stakeholders' views of punishment

31

(24)

Introduction

31

(1)

I. Assessing public views

31

(10)

II. Collecting stakeholders' views

41

(10)

Conclusions

51

(1)

Notes

51

(4)

4 Prioritising penal aims

55

(25)

Introduction

55

(1)

I. Reconciling proportionality and crime prevention in theory

55

(9)

II. Understandings of proportionality on the ground

64

(11)

Conclusions

75

(2)

Notes

77

(3)

5 Penal messages

80

(29)

Introduction

80

(1)

I. Overall aims of punishment

80

(14)

II. Sentencing as communication

94

(12)

Conclusions

106

(1)

Notes

107

(2)

6 Responding to punishment

109

(24)

Introduction

109

(1)

I. Responding to the penal message

109

(14)

II. Leniency for the remorseful offender?

123

(2)

III. The efficacy of the message

125

(4)

Conclusions

129

(3)

Notes

132

(1)

7 Towards a framework for community penalties

133

(21)

Introduction

133

(2)

Punishment as a communicative enterprise

135

(5)

Balancing retribution with crime prevention: what weight proportionality?

140

(3)

Using community penalties to communicate

143

(4)

A communicative framework for community penalties?

147

(4)

Conclusions

151

(1)

Notes

152

(2)

8 Conclusions

154

(11)

Introduction

154

(1)

Communicative penalties - a summary

154

(4)

Obstacles and opportunities

158

(3)

Using community penalties to restore

161

(1)

New forms of custodial and community provision

162

(2)

Conclusions

164

(1)

Notes

164

(1)

Appendix: The questionnaire

165

(7)

References

172

(9)

Index

181

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Reforming Community Penalties

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials