Prison sanctions versus community based sanctions : the offenders' perspective

Abstract

What do the offenders think about punishment? What effects do sanctions have on them? Most often research on crime and punishment tend to exclude the participation of offenders. Recognising the importance of such a research sample and the crucial knowledge they can partake, through this qualitative research, the researcher sought explicitly the perspectives of the offenders in order to demonstrate what they think about prison and community based sanctions. The participants answered questions regarding the positive and negative aspects of the sanctions, the impact the sanctions; have on the family, and they also provided their ideas on how the individual sanctions could be improved. In the end, the participants were asked to compare the two sanctions and to give reasons to determine which is the best sanction and which is the harshest sanction between the two.