"While the evidence seems to show that prisons do not succeed in the rehabilitating prisoners, there remains enormous pressure to increase the number of prisons and to toughen sentences for many crimes (A. Gidden, Sociology, 2006 p831)'.
The statement above made by A. Gidden [1] in his book shows that our current prisons do not work perfectly in this society in its aim is to rehabilitating prisoners. Prison is defined as a building where people are kept as a punishment for a crime they have committed [2] and one of means of social control. According to A. Gidden, prison is a place to 'improve' individuals and prepare them to play a fit and proper part in the society due to the crime committed by them once released.
For the purpose of discussion of this assignment, we will start with the development of the prison in United Kingdom. Traditionally, imprisonment used only to hold individuals waiting for corporal or capital punishment, deportations to penal colonies and etc. Historically, dungeons were used as a prison for ordinary soldiers who broke the laws in the middle ages. In 1166, after Henry II ordered sheriffs to build prison in every county, imprisonment were gradually become acceptable as an alternative punishment for vagrant, debt and petty offender in Britain. Prison is also used to keep those who are refused to be tried by jury. Later on, in 1615 Thomas More suggested a proposal for imprisonment as punishment to theft in his Utopia where thieves will be locked away and treated as slaves.
Up until the 17th Century, prison mainly is used for debt where debtors were often thrown into prisons and they will work until they paid their jailers enough money in exchange for a limited degree of freedom. In 17th Century, due to over growing population and with increased in the number of criminal, transportation is used as an alternative to incarcerating offenders to prison and it also a means for prisoners to be shipped to British colonies as labours for the plantations or slaves. Sociologist, Karl Marx views this form of punishment as 'primitive accumulation' where the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production in the capitalist system [3] .
In 18th Century, an English philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed a type of prison known as Panopticon. This ingenious design is a form of disciplinization by surveillance and the concept is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being observed or not which to show a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience". Bentham explained that the Panopticon is "a mode of obtaining power of mind, in a quantity hitherto without example" [4] . His idea obtained from the plan of military school which conceived by his brother who arrive it as a solution to the complexities which involved handling of large numbers of army. The architectural figure of Panopticon designed by Bentham "incorporates a tower central to an annular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also maze-like connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of the observer" [5] .
Panopticon was designed to runs using system of contract management which is an administration by contract as opposed to trust, where director would have pecuniary interest in lowering the average rate of mortality. It is intended to be cheaper because it requires fewer staff. In addition, this design is effective as the watchmen cannot be seen thus they no need to be in duty all the times which leaving the watching to the watched. Bentham faced many hurdles to get his idea approved due to the political and financial crisis and later the Parliament granted him a sanction to purchase a land to erect the prison but was rejected by the Prime Minister Spencer Perceveal in 1811 and thus the project was aborted. Later he was awarded a compensation of 23,000 pounds sterling for his monetary loss which however did little to alleviate his ensuing unhappiness for the miscarriage.
Based on the research found, there is Bentham did not manage to built his own, Panopticon prison during his lifetime but his design has heavily influence today modern prison which are built in a 'podular' design adopted from Bentham's Panopticon idea such as Pentoville Prison, Armagh Gaol and Eastern State Penitentiary. In most of these modern prison design, "cells are laid out in three or fewer tiers arrayed around an elevated central control station which affords a single correctional officer full view of all the cells within either a 270 degree or 180 degree field of view (180 degree is usually considered a closer level of supervision)" [6] . Due to today modern technology, the CCTV is installed to control every cell door in the prison and they are equipped with speakers so that communication can be made from the control station. This surveillance system developed by Bentham is very effective and cheap where all the prisoners are heavily guarded with very less staff required. Today, Bentham's surveillance policy is not only influenced in building prison but also hospital.
Bentham design was commented by Michel Foucault in his book [7] as an apparatus of power by virtue of the field of visibility it creates and said the design was an opposite of the principle of dungeon which comprise of "three functions- to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide which it preserve only the first and eliminates the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected" [8] . He also emphasised on the design that the "visibility is a trap" [9] because the prisoner is constantly supervised but cannot see the supervisor. Thus the prisoner is the object of the gaze. In disciplinization the prisoner, Foucault described Bentham's panopticism as 'generalized surveillance' where it is a perfect disciplinary institution "where how one may 'unlock' the disciplines and get them to function in a diffused, multiple, polyvalent way throughout the whole social body" [10] .
Today the prison in England and Wales are managed under Her Majesty's Prison Service (HM Prison) in which keeping in custody those committed by the courts. HM Prison adopted correctional form of policy in rehabilitating their prisoners where it ensure that the prisoners is treated with humane which is governed by Human Right Act 1998 and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release. The objectives of the prison is to protect the public and provide what commissioners want to purchase by holding prisoners securely, reducing the risk of prisoners re-offending and to provide safe and well-ordered establishment in which the administrator treat their prisoners humanely, decently and lawfully. To ensure the effectiveness of the prison, HM Prison worked with their commissioners and Criminal Justice System and obtained best value from the resources available using research to ensure effective correctional practice is used in their policy.
Prison is a form of sanction where all the non-conformity of the social norms is kept and rehabilitated. It also operates as a place to protect public from the dangerous criminal who are dangerous and seen as a threat to social order. Thus, HM Prison kept their security very tight to prevent the prisoners from escape. There are a few types of security which is enforced such as physical security where walls, bars, locks and Closed Circuit Television are installed to ensure maximum security, security procedures for instance accounting for prisoners or searching cells, assessment procedures by categorising prisoners to make sure that they kept in appropriate security conditions and intelligence gathering were used. Other informal security also used by developing positive relationships with prisoners, diverting prisoners' energy into constructive work and activity and creating decent regimes and programmes for prisoners.
However, we need to evaluate why Gidden said that prison do not succeed in the rehabilitating prisoners. Number of prisoners' population in England and Wales keep on rising every year. As we can see from the table A below, the number of adult offenders raised from 44,586 in year 2000 to 51,157 in 2006. Prison's function is to rehabilitate the offenders so that he or she will be reform and put back to the society in reducing crime but it seems that it is too naive to think that an individual that are released from the prison are unlikely to re-offence. Statistic from the Table A shows that there is not much fall of the adult prisoners whose re-offence between year 2001 and year 2006 which is 433.4 to 374.2 (per100 re-offenders) in contributing to the increase of the number of population in the prison of England and Wales.
Table A: Total actual and predicted re-offending rates, and frequency and severity rates per 100 offenders. [11]
There are several reasons contributed to the statistic above and how policy is imposed in reducing numbers of offenders and re-offenders. Low literacy and lack of other basic skills can be one of the contributing factors to the offenders to re-offend. Porporino and Robison (1992) found "lower re-imprisonment rates for offenders who had completed an adult basic education programme while in prison" [12] . So, Government gives opportunity to adult offenders for education and training while in prison to reform them and in reducing number of re-offend offenders. Thus, Government introduced Community Sentences and Offender Behaviour Programmes where its aims are to help them to equip with skills and qualifications so that they can find employment after they are released. Research has shown that the levels of tendency of the prisoners to re-offend who are currently employed after released are much lower [13] .
Offender Behaviour Programmes (OBPs) is conducted in the prison to identify the reasons why prisoners offend and reduce and monitor these factors. This programme intended to teach offenders how to manage those aspects of their lives that increase the risk for re-offending, rather than expecting punishments alone from the prison to act as a deterrent. Currently, there are 13 different Offending Behaviour Programmes (excluding Drug Treatment Programmes) is provided by the prison service which have been fully or provisionally accredited by the Correctional Services Accreditation Panel (CSAP).
According to Motiuk (1998) [14] , the main drives for prisoners to re-offend after released from prison include unemployment, substance misuse, criminal associates, marital/family status and personal or emotional problems. Other factor of adult re-offending is criminal history, social achievement and demographic factors relating to age, gender, ethnicity and family.
One of the programmes provided for the offenders under OBPs is Enhanced Thinking Skills (ETS) which addresses thinking and behaviour associated with offending which includes impulse control, flexible thinking, social perspective taking, value/moral reasoning, reasoning, and inter-personal problem solving. Over the past 12 years, over 40,000 offenders have completed this course within HM Prison Service [15] and this shows that this programmes is very effective in reform an offender thinking and behaviour so that the offender will follow the norms of the social order.
Cognitive Skills Booster Programme which is run by the Prison and Probation Service to reinforce learning from general offending programme through skills rehearsal and relapse prevention. Besides, in correcting an individual, emotional control is one of the most powerful factors contributing to crime. Thus, Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage it (CALM) is offered by the prison service for offenders whose offending is associated with poor emotional control. This is to reduce the intensity, frequency and duration of negative emotions which associated with their offending which include anger, anxiety and jealousy which might be provokes to commit crime.
On the other hand, to rehabilitate and prevent the prisoners to re-offend, prison service provides different programmes to suitability type of the crime convicted by the offenders. For high risk violent offenders and those with a history of violent behaviour, they will be required to follow Cognitive Self Change Programme where it will be conducted in group or individual sessions. Under this program, the offender will learn to control their violence and avoid reconviction.
Those who committed sexual offences will be required to follow Sex Offender Treatment Programmes (SOTP) in the prison where they will be assessed according to the level of risk and need of the offender. However, those offenders with abusive, violent behaviour at home and violent in their inmate relationship will be required to attend Healthy Relationship Programme (HRP) which is specifically designed for men.
Chromis is a complex and intensive programme which involve treatment and change are mostly for highly psychopathic prisoners where they will be equip with skills to reduce and manage their risk to be violence.
The review from Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health [16] found that the level of effectiveness of OBPs in reducing re-offending among the prisoners is modest on the whole, ranging from 10% or less to 24% varying on the type of programme, age and gender of the offender and level of risk for re-offending.
However, there is always a question on how secure is the prison? After the incident of first prison escape by Kendall and Draper from Gartree Prison on 10 December 1987 has shocked the public when it was broadcasted on television but Kendall was recaptured on 31 Jan 1988 and Draper on 24 February 1989. It is an embarrassment to the politician and the prison itself for its security. No matter how secure is the prison's security people in custody inevitably fantasize about escaping. Alternatively, maintaining a good order and discipline will be the best rather than concentrating spending more bucks on the security system in the prisons.
The Mountbatten Report (Home Office 1966) introduced a system in which prisoners will be classified into four categories; Category A, B, C and D after they have been assessed by Observation, Classification, and Allocation (OCA) Units in local prisons in determining an appropriate level of security and an allocation to the appropriate prison. Category A prisoners are those escape would constitute a danger to public, the police, or the security of state and Category B prisoners are those whom escape should be made very difficult but without recourse to the highest security conditions. The third categories is Category C where those who lack the resource and will to make a serious escape attempts but would abscond from open prisons and should be kept in semi-secure closed custody. Lastly, Category D prisoners where those deemed suitable for open conditions.
The prisoners will be placed in a different prisons depends on their category. A maximum security prison for Category A prisoners and graduated reductions of level of security in the prisons for each of the other categories. Category A prisoners will be allowed to disperse amongst the prisoners of lesser security risk but they will face additional restrictions imposed to their cell location, frequency of moving cells and of cell searches, and the conditions for their visitors. The dispersal policy is introduced based on a belief that lower security risk prisoners would somehow offset the control problems that were assumed to follow if high security risk prisoners were all confined together. Subsequent after the escaped of Kendall and Draper, a new sub-classification of Category A prisoners are introduced which the prisoners will be divided into exceptional risk, high risk, and standard risk.
According to the research [17] conducted by Roy D. King and Kathleen McDermott, some of the prisoners were not certain of their own category. It is found that 58.7% of those who were aware accepted that the way they had been categorized reasonably corresponded to the risk they posed to the public, police or state. However, the higher the prisoners' category the more security they were in and the less likely they will regard their own categorization as reasonable.
Violence / suicide
Legislative and policy regulated by Government plays an important role in cutting crime in this society. Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 received the Royal Assent on 21 March 1997 and has developed a several sentences to the offender and made some amendment to the welfare of the prisoners.
The 1997 Act has regulated on the Mandatory and Minimum Custodial Sentences (Part I), Effect of Custodial Sentences (Part II) and Miscellaneous and Supplemental (Part III). To battle the overcrowding prisoners and encourage prisoners to turn a new leaf, early release days will be awarded to those who keep a good behaviour during his or her sentences. The Act also makes further provision with respect to the treatment of offenders and for connected purposes.
The introduction of Automatic and Mandatory Minimum Sentences in 1997 Act was heavily criticised where the Review should recommend abolition to it. The Act itself intended to set as deterrence to protect the public from particular dangerous offenders such as re-offender. The term of the 1997 Act which covers some offences with little danger and some offenders with two convictions decades apart was regarded as ineffective as the result since 1997 show that many of the offenders subjected to these sentences could hardly be regarded as "dangerous". In additional, it has been cogently argued that automatic life sentences breach the European Convention on Human Rights and they will raise the issue of proportionality. This Act was said as a conservative piece of legislation and thus Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was passed to encounter the problem in 1997 Act.
Later, the Parliament passed the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and it received Royal Assent in July 1998. In preventing crime and disorder, this piece of legislation introduced Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, Parenting Orders, Sex Offender Orders, gave local authorities more powers with regards to strategies for reducing crime and disorder, and introduced law on 'racially aggravated' offences. Home Detention Curfew was introduced in 1999 and regulated under Crime and Disorder Act 1998 where the prisoners are released from prison several weeks to months to serve their sentences at home while under probation. This scheme is introduced to reduce the number of prisoners in the prison and hope the prisoner will integrate with the society. Only those who are eligible and assessed by the Home Detention Curfew will be allowed to follow the scheme where they will spend up to the last 2 months of their custodial sentence subject to an electronically-monitored curfew while in the community.
Based on the research [18] conducted by Criminal Justice System (CJS) in 2002, found this scheme does a good job between resettlement of prisoners and providing protection to the public. It also found that over 44,000 prisoners have been released from 1999-2002 and only 2% have offended during time of curfew.
Table 1 Rates of reoffending while on HDC, 2003/04 - 2007/08, England and Wales
Number of offenders
Year
Number of offenders on HDC
Number of offenders who reoffended while on HDC
Reoffending rate (%)
2003-2004
20,802
1,244
6.0
2004-2005
18,587
839
4.5
2005-2006
15,443
688
4.5
2006-2007
12,626
484
3.8
2007-2008
11,316
486
4.3
Table 1: The revised annual reoffending figures for those on HDC from April 2003 to March 2008.
Table 2 Re-offences committed while on HDC by offence category, 2003-04-2007-08 England and Wales
Number of offences
Offence Category
2003-04
2004-05
2005-06
2006-07
2007-08
Violence against the person
74
47
50
40
60
Sexual Offences
3
2
0
0
1
Burglary
120
82
81
60
54
Robbery
19
19
14
19
7
Theft and handling stolen goods
519
331
282
204
206
Criminal damage
15
21
5
9
4
Drug offences
210
142
108
77
88
Fraud and forgery
103
38
35
30
32
Indictable motoring offences
18
21
9
7
6
Other indictable offences
172
96
62
35
35
Summary motoring offences
658
398
294
172
128
Summary offences excluding motoring
396
336
236
169
199
All offences
2,307
1,533
1,176
822
820
Table 2: The types of offences committed whilst on HDC from April 2003 to March 2008.
The statistical data above (table 1 & 2) are based on the most recent data recorded by the Prison Service and data on prisoners re-offending is an extract of the Police National Computer (PNC) held by the Ministry of Justice. As it is shown in the Table 1, the HDC scheme is very success in reducing number of re-offences where it shown that the re-offending rate has fallen from 6% to 4.3%. Home Detention Curfew also has proven succeed in cutting crime among the prisoners whilst on HDC to re-offence as it is shown above the number of re-offence by the prisoners whilst on HDC has fallen from 2,307 offences to 820 offences a year. Thus, this proves HDC is an alternative to sentencing in prison as we can see from both of the tables above.
Furthermore, in preventing crime through punishment and rehabilitation offenders the legislative body plays an important role in reducing number of crime through legislation. Recently, Parliament passed Criminal Justice Act 2003 where it reformed the court procedure and sentencing, to make the trials speedy and to deliver clear, consistent and appropriate sentencing. Sections 147 to 151 provides a guideline to the court in passing community sentences and set out general restrictions on imposing community sentences.
Since mid-1990s, the total population of prison in England and Wales has increased significantly. From the chart 1 [19] below, the population has growth from 61,470 in June 1997 to 79,730 in June 2007. The prison population has rise for 4% (net increase) after a year where it reaching 83,190 on 30th June 2008, with the sentenced population rising by 4% and remand population increasing by 5%. In gender comparison, the male population has grown by 4% to 78,690 and the female population has grown by 5% to 4,510. Based on most recent statistic [20] , the increase in the rate of growth of prison population has increased to 66% between January 1995 and January 2009 (from 49,500 to 82,100).
Chart 1: Actual prison population (seasonally adjusted time series) since 1997 with policy interventions and other key events.
The chart above represents the actual prison population from January 1997 until July 2007 with regulations interventions and other key events. As we can see from the chart 1 above, it shown that the custody rates and average custodial sentence lengths (ACSLs) for indictable offences increased significantly between 1997 and 2004 where it rising from 22.6% and 15.7 months to 25.3% and 16.1 months respectively. Over the same period, there is much change in the number of offenders sentenced for indictable offences which is between 317,430 and 340,300 per year. The data given in the chart is related with sentencing behaviour (i.e. custody rates and ACSLs) being the main reason behind the observed growth in the prison population.
The National Statistic reported that after indeterminate sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) are introduced in 2005 the custody rates have experienced slightly year-on year decreases from 2004 to 2004. Provisional data for 2007 has shown that a custody rate of 23.7% for all indictable offences and a determinate ACSLs of 15.2 months for indictable offences where a determinate sentence was imposed.
The Ministry of Justice in its finding on sentencing behaviour for determinate sentences of immediate custody has found that the factors contributed to the growth in the prison population over the past decade including: "offenders breaking the conditions of their licence are being recalled in greater numbers and for longer periods, reflecting legislative changes in 1998 and 2003; increased use of indeterminate sentences following the introduction of Indeterminate sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) in April 2005; the introduction of Suspended Sentence Orders in April 2005 for which offenders in breach can be taken into custody; and increases in the time certain types of offender remain in prison (particularly in recent years) as the use of Home Detention Curfew for the early release of offenders has diminished and the parole rate has fallen. This has been countered to some extent by the End of Custody Licence (ECL) scheme, introduced at the end of June 2007" [21] .
Thus, it might be fair enough to justified that in our everyday growing number of populations in the community our current legislation and policy did a good job in cutting crime but in regard to stricter sentences as from Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 until Criminal Justice Act 2003, we can see that the number of population of the prisoners keep on increasing over the years due to the new legislation imposed.
Firstly, -Re-offences
Causes of re-offending? - University of crime? Violence? Legislative body? Judges
Alternative to sentences?
