A custodial sentence is a
judicial sentence, imposing a punishment consisting of mandatory custody of the convict, either in
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where Prisoner, people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state ...
or in some other closed therapeutic or educational institution, such as a
reformatory
A reformatory or reformatory school is a youth detention center or an adult correctional facility popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Western countries. In the United Kingdom and United States, they came out of social concern ...
, (maximum security) psychiatry or
drug detoxification
Drug detoxification (informally, detox) is variously construed or interpreted as a type of "medical" intervention or technique in regards to a physical dependence mediated by a drug; as well as the process and experience of a withdrawal syndrome ...
(especially
cold turkey). As 'custodial' suggests, the sentence requires the suspension of an individual's liberty and the assumption of responsibility over the individual by another body or institution.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (England and Wales) states that '(2)The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence'. Some serious offences incur minimum custodial sentences, unless there are exceptional circumstances. Custodial sentences may also be used where there is a perceived threat to public safety.
Community sentences are
non-custodial
Child custody is a legal term regarding '' guardianship'' which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of ''legal custody'', which is the rig ...
and include fines, various mandatory but 'open' therapy and courses, restriction orders and loss or suspension of civil rights.
See also
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Capital punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...
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Community sentence
Community sentence or alternative sentencing or non-custodial sentence is a collective name in criminal justice for all the different ways in which courts can punish a defendant who has been convicted of committing an offense, other than through a ...
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Suspended sentence
A suspended sentence is a sentence on conviction for a criminal offence, the serving of which the court orders to be deferred in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation. If the defendant does not break the law during that ...
References
{{Authority control
Penal imprisonment