Alternatives to Prison

Although this chapter is entitled ‘Alternatives to Prison’ it is imprisonment itself which should be regarded as the final alternative, since the abolition of capital punishment in 1965. This view of prison as a ‘last resort’ is not new. Penal philosophers from Beccaria to Baroness Wooton have asserted that the extreme deprivation of liberty which imprisonment represents requires equally stringent justifications for its imposition (see Honderich, 1971). Indeed, this principle is endorsed in legislation so that a court must not pass sentence of imprisonment on a person of or over 21 years of age who has not previously been sentenced to imprisonment or detention by a court in any part of the United Kingdom, unless the court considers that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate. Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980