Dorothe Dorothea Dix: Prisoner Reform

Prisoner reform is a crucial issue today which has yet to reach its full impact on the minds and lives of voters. However, with every passing year the importance of this topic becomes more evident. Since the eighties, every passing year has brought more pressure for harsher and longer imprisonment and more streamlined mandatory sentencing rules. The earliest prisons were local township jails that were seen as housing facilities for those waiting on trial. When someone was convicted they were either executed, banished or tortured. This has not only resulted in an exploding prison population, but also in a drastic increase in the number of prisoners released into communities. Additionally, the push towards stronger measures has decreased educational opportunities in prisons and the availability of rehabilitation programs. This means that released prisoners are unable to reintegrate into their communities.

Dorothea Dix played a big role in the prison movement.

Dorothea visited jails and documented how bad prisoners got treated. From lack of food to poor medical health care. Dorothea noticed all these things and wanted to see a change. She sent her documents to the Massachusetts legislature while changes did not come right away she kept pushing for a change until she saw improvements. Dix ended up opening up 32 mental hospitals. Documentation was not the only movement method people also protested for better health care and more rights for the mentally ill.

However, merely making government money available to private, religious, or state-based programs is not enough. These funds are only likely to reach a minority of prisoners who are already being aided by the aided programs. Prisoners whose communities and systems do not already take measures to help their rehabilitation will not be seeing any increase in re-entry programs or

preparation.
A nationwide set of standards is needed to assure that every prisoner eligible for re-release into the community will be inoculated against recidivism and prepared to become a useful part of the society in which they will reside. Accomplishments of the prison reform were prisons with better sanitary conditions, rehabilitation programs, mental hospitals and libraries in the prison. America would be very different without the prison reform movement. The prison reform gave voice to the change that needed to be done in the incarceration system. Prison is a very corrupted system, the money taken from taxes for prisons would be used to release people instead of improving the jail conditions. The goal for prisons should be to give prisoners a new outlook on life so when they get released they do not go back to their old ways but instead give back to the community.
Today, still changes could be made because there is a big population of people incarcerated a lot who are even serving time for a crime they did not commit. Even though times are better than before because instead of violent deaths and mistreatment prisoners are getting treated with more respect. Thanks to the fight people like Dorothea Dix did for change there are more opportunities. There is no point in having someone released from jail if they are not a better person than before. Government will always be corrupt but as the people we can get together and fight for the rights and changes we deserve.