INTRODUCTION
Rehabilitation is firmly entrenched in the history of corrections in the United States. Penitentiaries, for example were formed in 1820 with the belief that offenders could be morally reformed (Cullen, & Jonson, 2012, pp. 27-28). In 1870). The National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline documented the merits of rehabilitation (Wines, 1871, p. 457). However, by the end of the 1960s, the United States had experienced several years of discontent within its prison systems which resulted in a national call for prison reform and the development of a disillusionment with rehabilitation (Martinson, 1974, p. 22). In 1966, Robert Martinson was hired to evaluate the effectiveness of rehabilitation, the result of which was his infamous “What Works?” paper, in which he posits that empirical evidence does not support rehabilitation (p. 23). By the mid-1970s, correctional policy shifted from one emphasizing rehabilitation to one emphasizing just desserts/retribution, deterrence and incapacitation (Cullen, & Jonson, 2012, p. 22). The result of these “get-tough” policies, which sought to control crime through strict laws and lengthy sentences, was unprecedented growth in our custodial population, which we can no longer support, either financially or spatially (p. 1).
EVIDENCE-BASED CORRECTIONS
Evidence-based corrections advocates for the use of empirically sound data to determine effective correctional policies and practices and is important for many reasons (Cullen, & Jonson, 2012, p. 4). For example, growing prison populations are consuming resources at an alarming rate (MacKenzie, 2000, pp 457). As such, budget cuts must be made in other areas (Cullen, & Jonson, 2012, p. 4). However, most significant is the fact t...
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Wines, E. C. (Ed.). (1871). Declaration of principles adopted and promulgated by the Congress. Transactions of the National Congress on Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline. 541-548. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons.
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
Wormith, J. S., Althouse, R., Simpson, M., Reitzel, L. R., Fagan, T. J., & Morgan, R. D. (2007). The rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders: The current landscape and some future directions for correctional psychology. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34(7), 879-892.
Prisons and correctional facilities in the United States have changed from rehabilitating people to housing inmates and creating breeding grounds for more violence. Many local, state, and federal prisons and correctional facilities are becoming more and more overcrowded each year. If the Department of Corrections (DOC) wants to stop having repeat offenders and decrease the volume of inmates entering the criminal justice system, current regulations and programs need to undergo alteration. Actions pushed by attorneys and judges, in conjunction current prison life (including solitary confinement), have intertwined to result in mass incarceration. However, prisoner reentry programs haven’t fully impacted positively to help the inmate assimilate back into society. These alterations can help save the Department of Corrections (DOC) money, decrease the inmate population, and most of all, help rehabilitate them. After inmates are charged with a crime, they go through the judicial system (Due Process) and meet with the prosecutor to discuss sentencing.
Drago, F., Galbiati, R. & Vertova, P. (2011). Prison conditions and recidivism. American law and economics review, 13 (1), pp. 103--130.
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"
Sung, L. G.-e. (2011). Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration. Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications.
The data gathered in the Teplin, Abram & McClelland (1994) research was conducted in the Cook county jail in Chicago during a six year period, using interview techniques during the intake process of 728 inmates. They then tracked the participants over the six years by monitoring their rap sheets. What sets this research apart from the others is that they utilized the population of a jail versus a prison. Typically, once in prison, the time spent there is long whereas in jail, the incarceration time is usually much shorter as the inmates are in jail for lesser crimes or are awaiting trial. In any case, there is a larger turnaround and more opportunity to obtain diverse long term data.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
Due to the increase of incarceration rates in the United States, it is crucial to identify which of the theories of corrections is best suited for the criminal justice system. There are six theories that influence the correctional system; those are: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, restorative justice, rehabilitation and early intervention. Most of the correctional theories concentrate on what should be done with people after they commit a crime, however, early intervention concentrates on preventing the crime before it happens (MacKenzie, 2013, p. 277). For instance, incapacitation refers to removing criminals from society–as a means of punishment–so that the rest of the population can feel safe (MacKenzie, 2013, p. 273). As a result,
Most people know very little about America’s correction system. What little most people do know is often misconstrued by what they see in movies or what they hear on the news. When Americans think about the correction system, images from Alcatraz or a long row of iron bars and concrete with men in black and white striped suits flood their minds. There are problems with America’s correctional system. There isn’t enough space or enough money to go around. After the terror attack on the world trade centers in 2001, money was taken from the corrections budget and given to homeland security. Two of the ways corrections deals with the problem of the lack of funds is probation and parole.
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
The overcrowdings of many state prisons are the result of offenders, who are sent to prison for violating the terms of their probation and parole (Lawrence, 2008). According to a report by the Department of Justice, in 2006 thirty-five percent of all state prisons intake were offenders returned to prison for violating their parole (Lawrence, 2008). These new intakes contribute
As prisons began to proliferate in the United States, prison administrators increasingly argued that prison labor was the pathway to both inmate reformation and prison discipline. With the decline of prison labor and the birth of the progressive era, prison officials began instead to talk about rehabilitation as the process of transforming inmates into (white and male) ideal citizens who were able to govern themselves (McLennan
Reform policies focused on establishing effective programs to aid with the rehabilitation of inmates and prepare them for reintroduction into society would serve to reduce the incidence of recidivism. Studies have shown that incarceration proves extremely inefficient when it comes to preventing crime, in fact “more than half the prisoners released in 2005 were rearrested within 12 months, according to research from 2014, and more than two-thirds were arrested by the end of their third year” (Lichtenberg, Judith). By not adequately preparing inmates for reintroduction, the current prison system essentially sets the prisoners up for failure with detrimental effects to society when they cannot function in society. In an interview, Steven Raphael,