Penology

Summary

Penology is the science and practice of prison management and criminal rehabilitation. Penologists study the ethics and effectiveness of various strategies for punishing crime, including incarceration and rehabilitation. The science of penology is especially relevant in the United States, a nation with less than 5 percent of the world's people but nearly 25 percent of its prisoners. More than 2.3 million individuals, or about 1 percent of the country's total population, are incarcerated.

Definition and Basic Principles

Penology is the study and practice of prison management and criminal rehabilitation. The modern science of penology uses the principles of evidence-based research to evaluate and justify criminal punishments. Penologists use rigorously collected data and the tools of statistical analysis to establish which criminal management strategies under which circumstances are the most effective in terms of their costs and benefits, both to society and to the individuals being punished. This approach is utilitarian in the sense that it seeks solutions that maximize benefits for the greatest number of people. However, penologists are not merely concerned with numbers; they also study the daily lives and cultural habits of prisoners and correctional staff, examine the social and psychological effects of confinement, and address broader philosophical issues of power, control, and personal responsibility. In addition, they consider such issues as the rights of offenders, the rights of victims, and the ways in which laws are implemented by courts.

Background and History

Much of the history of penology is synonymous with the history of prison and jail systems, since for many years, incarceration was the only tool commonly used to combat criminal behavior in society. Between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, most jails—which typically kept men, women, and children alike in deplorable conditions—were private rather than owned and operated by the state. Prison reform took place in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The state became involved in managing prisons, and prisoners began to be separated into different categories. The first attempts at reforming, if not rehabilitating, offenders involved putting them to work at physically demanding jobs, intended to improve them both physically and mentally. In the late nineteenth century, the pendulum swung back, and prisons became harsher, with the emphasis on rigid rules and routines and strict discipline.

Penology in the twentieth century was characterized by a progressive movement that viewed criminal offenders as individuals with differing reasons for committing crimes. It called for a wider array of approaches to crime, including rehabilitation, parole, probation, and a juvenile justice system that treated children differently from adults. The study of penology began to be formalized during this time, as the strategies applied by governments to prevent or deal with criminal activity were increasingly based on principles derived from scientific research. In the late twentieth century, the pendulum once again swung back toward tougher measures and an increased reliance on incarceration and control to combat criminal offenses. Support for the death penalty also grew during this time. In the United States, penology has become a field whose major mission is to find ways to relieve the burden of what has become an overcrowded and dysfunctional prison system.

How It Works

Penologists make a distinction between at least four major and potentially overlapping approaches to dealing with crime: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Retribution attempts to match the severity of a punishment with the severity of the crime, in effect making the offender repay his or her debt to society. Retribution is a moral rather than a rational model for formulating penal policies and has largely fallen out of favor within the field of penology as a primary basis for determining when and how punishments should be used. The desire for retribution continues to play an important role in public opinion about penal policy, however. For example, respondents to surveys most frequently cite retribution as their reason for supporting the use of capital punishment.

The field of deterrence theory attempts to formulate punishments that are so unwelcome that they will prevent individuals from committing crimes. For instance, many believe that mandatory minimum sentences and the threat of capital punishment have a deterrent effect on crime. However, harsh punishments can be effective deterrents only if they are combined with a high probability of arrest and conviction. Therefore, the role of law enforcement and the courts in bringing offenders to justice is as important as the sentences themselves. The deterrence model of penal policy is based largely on a theory of criminal behavior called the rational choice theory, which holds that the decision to commit a crime is based on a reasoned examination of the potential costs and benefits of the act. Many scholars have questioned whether rational choice actually applies to most crimes.

Rehabilitation also seeks to prevent future crimes, but it does so by working with offenders and helping them become useful members of society. Education, work training, counseling, or religious guidance are often components of rehabilitative programs. Rehabilitation is a model for determining penal policy that is compatible with emotional and social theories of criminal behavior. If criminal behavior is caused at least in part by personal factors such as depression or drug addiction or by social factors such as unemployment or poverty, rehabilitative programs that address those specific issues—through therapy, drug rehabilitation, or career development—should have a positive effect.

Incapacitation seeks to protect society by preventing (rather than simply deterring) future crimes by rendering the offender incapable of committing them. Examples of incapacitation include a long prison sentence or a death sentence. Incapacitation is a model for penal policy that is highly future oriented in that it assumes that offenders will commit additional crimes and attempts to take away any opportunity they may have to do so.

Applications and Products

Incarceration. Perhaps the most basic application of penology as a science is in investigating questions related to incarceration. Penologists use empirical studies to answer questions such as when jail sentences are effective at reducing crimes for specific offenses or when alternatives should be used. They also ask how long sentences should be for maximum effectiveness. For example, a great deal of research has shone a spotlight on brief mandatory jail sentences for drunk driving offenses. Among other findings, penologists have shown that two-day sentences may help reduce the risk of first-time offenders repeating their crime, while lengthier jail sentences may in fact have a counterproductive effect on recidivism. The relationship between incarceration and future crime is not straightforward. One study, for example, estimated that only about one-quarter of the drop in crime in the United States during the 1990s could properly be attributed to the use of jail sentences.

Penitentiaries. Penological research has had many important practical applications with regard to the design of penitentiaries. For example, studies have shown that exposure to pastel colors such as pink, blue, and yellow—as opposed to sterile white, for instance—can have a calming effect on incarcerated prisoners, reducing their tendencies toward violent behaviors. As a result, some penitentiaries have begun using paint color as a tool to reduce aggression among inmates. Other studies have shown that when prisoners are idle, they are more prone to violence and depression. Architects are able to use such evidence-based findings from penology to create penitentiaries that are more conducive to social interactions and productive activities—for example, prisons may include space dedicated to libraries or exercise facilities.

Rehabilitation. Penological studies have found that rehabilitation programs such as group therapy, religious counseling, and vocational training help reduce recidivism, especially with high-risk offenders, when it is directed specifically at the root causes of criminal behavior, is implemented with flexibility and altered to meet the needs of specific prisoners, and is followed by long-term support for the participants. Some examples of successful rehabilitation programs include educational classes in which prisoners work toward a general equivalency diploma (GED) and psychological therapy sessions for incarcerated sex offenders, in which prisoners are taught to control emotions such as anger and hostility and lessen their preoccupation with sex. Such programs have been shown to reduce recidivism rates.

Juvenile Justice. Many penologists help provide research and analysis that shapes the policies of the juvenile justice system. For example, researchers have investigated the hypothesis that trying adolescents in adult courts and making them eligible for harsher sentences has a deterrent effect on crime and a reductive effect on recidivism rates. One comparative study of juvenile offenders in the states of New York and New Jersey did not find this to be the case, however.

Parole. One particularly significant area of study for penologists is the effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration such as parole and probation. One study analyzed recidivism rates among released prisoners to clarify the circumstances under which parole is most effective. The study found that female offenders who did not have long prior criminal histories were more likely not to commit additional offenses than male offenders or those who had been incarcerated for crimes relating to drugs, property, or violence. The role of the science of penology is thus an eminently practical one—studies such as these can help inform government and state agencies as they decide whether to release a prisoner on parole.

The Death Sentence. One of the weightiest problems penologists attempt to tackle is determining whether the death sentence is an effective deterrent; that is, how well the threat of execution, or capital punishment, prevents crime. The many studies in this area have been inconclusive. Some, for example, have found no significant difference in the murder rate in states that impose the death penalty and those that do not, but one meta-analysis of death penalty studies found some evidence that the deterrence effect does exist. Another issue that concerns penologists with regard to the death penalty is that of wrongful conviction. In one study of prisoners on death row, nearly half were found to be eventually cleared of the crimes for which they had been found guilty, suggesting that the criminal justice system needs greater safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions, especially if they carry the harshest possible sentence.

Careers and Course Work

Penology is an interdisciplinary field. It is possible to approach it from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds. Common undergraduate and graduate concentrations for this career include psychology, criminology, sociology, and law. Because penology is concerned with the reasons behind human behavior and the ways to effectively control that behavior, many courses from business or management studies are also appropriate. Many penological studies involve synthesizing and analyzing trends across large amounts of data, so it is important for penologists to have a basic grounding in the mathematics of statistical analysis. After graduation, students will often find it beneficial to serve an internship at a state or federal prison system to obtain practical experience within the penitentiary system. Career paths related to penology include psychologist, criminologist, police officer, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, correctional facility guard or administrator, and probation or parole officer.

Social Context and Future Prospects

Penological research affects the lives not only of incarcerated prisoners and criminal offenders but also of members of the broader society. Research into the effectiveness of various deterrents to crime or attempts to reduce recidivism can help protect society from the harmful effects of criminal activity. In addition, when incarceration rates are high, there is an unseen cost to society in the form of lost work-hours because prisoners cannot participate in the economy and contribute to its growth. Penology has the potential to reduce the effects of crime on society by suggesting ways to reduce incarceration rates and recidivism, possibly through improving the effectiveness of alternatives such as probation and rehabilitation.

Bibliography

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Gottschalk, Marie. “Money and Mass Incarceration: The Bad, the Mad, and Penal Reform.” Criminology and Public Policy 8.1 (2009): 97–109. Print.

Horton, David M., ed. Pioneers in Penology: The Reformers, the Institutions, and the Societies, 1557–1900. 2 vols. Lewiston: Mellen, 2007. Print.

Johnson, Robert. Hard Time: Understanding and Reforming the Prison. 3rd ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002. Print.

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Thistlethwaite, Amy B., and John Wooldredge. Forty Studies That Changed Criminal Justice: Explorations into the History of Criminal Justice Research. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2014. Print.

Williams, Vergil L. Dictionary of American Penology. Rev. and expanded ed. Westport: Greenwood, 1996. Print.

"Youth Justice: The State of America’s Children 2021." Children’s Defense Fund, 2021, www.childrensdefense.org/state-of-americas-children/soac-2021-youth-justice. Accessed 12 Jul. 2021.