A custodial sentence is a
judicial sentence
In law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multip ...
, imposing a punishment consisting of mandatory custody of the convict, either in
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
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 the intervention in a case of physical dependence to a drug; the process and experience of a withdrawal syndrome; and any of various treatments for acute drug overdose.
A detoxification progr ...
(especially
cold turkey
"Cold turkey" refers to the abrupt cessation of a substance dependence and the resulting unpleasant experience, as opposed to gradually easing the process through reduction over time or by using replacement medication.
Sudden withdrawal from dru ...
). 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 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, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
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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 offence, other than through a c ...
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Suspended sentence
References
{{Authority control
Penal imprisonment