Imprisonment: Its Effectiveness and Results

Abstract

Imprisonment is ill-suited to achieve any of the traditional objects of punishment, and in practice produces the undesirable results of contamination with experienced criminals, loss of employment, character re-definition as a criminal and institutionalisation, all at considerable financial cost. Some of these results could be avoided by more careful classification of offenders, by a system of conditional discharge and by putting more emphasis on reconciliation and restitution. This paper was read to a conference of police officers, who found little fault with the arguments put forward but expressed very grave doubts about the practicality of any alternative to imprisonment in this country.