Prison Reform Essay

Prison reform was set up as a way to help ensure that there is always away to make enhancements to the environments inside of the prison facilities as well as the successfulness of the penal system. This reform was set forth to ensure that the offenders were treated fairly and humane. Prison reform over the decades has played a vital role in finding substitutions to incarceration. These substitutions include strategies and curriculums that help to improve an inmates time and safety in an institution as well as to educate them on ways to better themselves and to provide them with life and job skills to more effectively prepare them for reentry back into society. Research has shown that an offenders social and economic involvements while inside

This event gave American colonies the right to imprison offenders based on the way they felt fit rather than the way the English Parliament set into place. In 1787, the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, was the first prison reform group. This group met at Benjamin Franklin’s home to discuss the concerns of the American penal system. This meeting was to collaborate ideas on how the government could better the local jails environments. This reform group thought that the conditions the criminals faced in these jails as well as the sentencing conditions were redundant and tortuous. Up until this point all inmates no matter the sex, age, or crime were housed together. This group felt the need to demonstrate the necessity for prisons that were bigger in size and would focus on the punishments of solitude and manual work conditions as a way to transform the offenders

And after speaking with Sargent J. Walter from the Women’s Eastern Diagnostic Center in Vandalia, Mo, I discovered that the State of Missouri has also adopted some of these proven reforms. These reforms focus on rehabilitating the offender by targeting behavioral problems associated with criminal activity. The BOP, starts their rehabilitation process with a reform known as “Day One”. This reform uses research and data collected during the “criminogenic factors” survey that will allow the prison staff to guarantee that the inmate gets the proper amenities during their incarceration. Another reform strategy that both the Federal and Missouri prisons have established is an educational system within the institution. This system will help to develop an individualized plan which will help to assess the inmate’s educational needs. This plan will track the offenders progress throughout their time during incarceration. One study shows that offenders that have access to and complete the educational curricula have a 43 percent lesser chance of recidivism than those who have not taken the opportunity (Education). These programs provide the offender with basic literary skills, high school diplomas or equivalency tests, as well as an opportunity to learn a special