Does Prison Work?

The general sociological consensus suggests imprisonment is not a particularly effective way of cutting crime (although that’s not to say this is it’s primary or even sole function).

Bandyopadhyay et al’s (2012) econometric study, however, examines and to some extent challenges, this consensus by looking  at the relationship between crime detection, sentence length and wider socio-economic factors (wage levels, unemployment and age demographics) as they can be applied to four types of acquisitive crime:

1. burglary
2. robbery
3. theft
4. fraud

This PowerPoint presentation outlines the study in terms of:

• Aims
• Method
• Theory
• Conclusions
• Problems