The Rehabilitation of Jonathan Wayne Nobles
In The United States the number of people in prison is over two million, and of those two million it is estimated that two thirds of them will be back in prison within three years (Correctional Populations). Some people argue that rehabilitation is the most effective way to handle prisoners, but the risks don’t outweigh the benefits, especially for murderers. Nobles was an example of a murderer who appeared rehabilitated, but under close examination of his actions, he was no more than a manipulating sociopath. Nobles was not rehabilitated because his actions in court showed how he felt, his faith was a facade, and he was a schizophrenic.
Miranda Stuart once wrote, “Deeds speak louder than words”
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Lewis (Lewis). The attitude to forgive, as seen in the quote by C.S. Lewis, would have been compelling for Nobles who had committed a horrific crime. When Nobles first started serving his sentence, he slipped up and showed his true personality. “He once broke away from guards while returning to his cell from the exercise yard and climbed the exposed pipes and bars in the cell block, kicking down television sets suspended outside on the bottom tier”(Steve Earle). Another time, Nobles slit his own wrist because he wanted to punch a guard. Nobles must have reached a point where he realized he played his cards wrong, and that if he wanted forgiveness, respect, and more freedom, he would have to “find” religion. His finding religion improved his situation, but didn’t improve his true feelings on what he had done. His history wouldn’t allow him to fully …show more content…
The physical abuse he experienced may have also added to his murderous tendencies. In his court appeal Nobles admitted he was beaten by his mother and step-father. Perhaps, when he was being beaten, he received a blow to the head, or the emotional stress of being intensely beaten caused him to have a psychotic break. At various times, Nobles was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Can a schizophrenic person be rehabilitated? Nobles had a history of hallucinating: the hallucination was of a woman instructing him to hurt people. If he had been a free man, he would have had to contend with these voices telling him to hurt people. Illegal drugs only hurt the mental capabilities of a person, yet Nobles admitted he was on drugs the night of the murder. Why would someone who has a mental problem take illegal drugs and make the problem worse? He had knowledge of a problem that could have been helped with proper
Jarrod J. Rein is an eighteen-year-old with dark brown hair and brown eyes to match the brown arid dirt of Piedmont, Oklahoma. His skin is a smooth warm tan glow that opposes his white smile making his teeth look like snow. Standing a great height of six foot exactly, his structure resembles a bear. He is attending Piedmont high school where he in his last year of high school (senior year). He is studying to be a forensics anthropologist. Also he is studying early in the field of anatomy to be successful in his profession. While not always on the rise for knowledge Jarrod’s swimming for his high school. In a sense it’s like you see double.
Nobles growing up did not have best home life a child should have. Still that leaves no excuse to murder two young innocent women and almost a young man. Some people argue that Johnathan was not in his right mind because he was high on drugs. In a way, it’s like saying someone made him do it. It is possible for anything or anybody to make someone else actually do something they didn’t want to? If the murders were premeditated, the drugs could have been a cover up. Nobles knowing, he might get caught, would make people feel like he only did it because of drugs were in his system. This goes back to people craving attention and doing anything to get
Many changes are made inside the justice system, but very few have damaged the integrity of the system and the futures of citizens and prisoners. Although the story seems to focus more on lockdown, Hopkins clearly identifies the damaging change from rehabilitation in prisons to a strategy of locking up and containing the prisoners. To the writer, and furthermore the reader, the adjustment represented a failure to value lives. “More than 600,000- about 3 times what it was when I entered prison, sixteen years ago. In the resulting expansion of the nation’s prison systems, authorities have tended to dispense with much of the rehabilitative programming once prevalent in America’s penal institutions” (Hopkins 157). The new blueprint to lock every offender in prison for extended sentencing leads to an influx in incarcerated people. With each new person
He cares about people and believes that the safety of individuals is decreasing because criminals are not punished effectively by imprisonment and that some even receive a “sign of manhood” from going to prison (1977). Additionally, he is upset that the ineffective system is so expensive. His concern for his audience’s safety and his carefully argued grounds, which he uses to support his claim, create a persona of an intelligent person of goodwill. Jeff Jacoby does an excellent job informing his audience that the current criminal justice system is not any more humane than the physical forms of punishment used in the past.
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.
...pinion” (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 262). This system is successful at helping convicted persons, however, there are very few applicants. This is due to many factors including; the strenuous application process, the pride of the accused that does not want to seek “mercy”, and a lack of awareness regarding the program among inmates (Roberts, Grossman, 2012, 262).
Lewis is now talking about forgiveness. Forgiveness sounds easy until you find yourself having to forgive someone who has done you wrong. When forgiving someone you don’t have to like them or agree with what they have done, but you do have tell yourself to stop holding a grudge when you think about what that other person has done. But when forgiving someone you have said that you no longer hold that against them. Also God says that we should forgive others like he forgave us and we have done more wrong to him that the other way around.
Was Jonathan Wayne Nobles rehabilitated? We will never know. Steve Earle wrote “A Death in Texas”. Earle was a country musician who spent his own time in prison for drug charges, Earle was rehabilitated and let out to join society again. Exchanging letters with convicted murderer Jonathan Wayne Nobles for 10 years, Earle finally met Nobles for the first time just a month before he was killed by lethal injection. Jonathan Wayne Nobles, was a power seeking manipulating narcissist who broke into a home and knifed to death two young ladies, and attempting to kill a young man, stabbing him 19 times. There was no problem with conviction, Nobles confessed to the murders. Nobles started out having a rough childhood, he attempted
Similarly to rehabilitation, restoration looks to better society, however, this approach to justice emphasises the needs of the victim. In cases of minor crimes such as vandalism or petty theft, restoration is preferable to rehabilitation. This is because those who commit these minor crimes often don’t have the need for rehabilitation as mental health isn’t a large concern. In these small cases, it is also not burdensome to compensate for the losses of the victim, making restoration the ideal
Jerome Turner turns up dead in a doctor's facility E.R. At the point when Jerome's child, Jaden, tells the police that a man put a swab in his mouth upon the arrival of the murder, they perceive this as a DNA test. Next, they discover that Jerome was the grandson of Nathan Robinson. Nathan kicked the bucket in 1959, yet his cells, known as NaRo, were the first to remain alive in culture. One researcher depicts them as "a lab staple, similar to white mice or petri dishes." The everlasting NaRo cells are sold to inquire about revolves the world over by Hema Labs, whose author took the cells from Nathan Robinson without his authorization.
(Stojkovic and Lovell 2013) The pros of rehabilitation are of course the fact that it is successfully most of the time and is beneficial to society when a person can go from being a criminal to being a productive member of society like a preacher or teacher. The cons are some people just don’t want to change so rehabilitating them is nearly impossible and even there are those that cannot be because they suffer from mental issues or enjoy committing crimes too much to want to change. (Stojkovic and Lovell
Sung, L. G.-e. (2011). Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration. Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications.
With the substantial increase in prison population and various changes that plague correctional institutions, government agencies are finding that what was once considered a difficult task to provide educational programs, inmate security and rehabilitation programs are now impossible to accomplish. From state to state each correctional organization is coupled with financial problems that have depleted the resources to assist in providing the quality of care in which the judicial system demands from these state and federal prisons. Judges, victims, and prosecuting attorneys entrust that once an offender is turned over to the correctional system, that the offender will receive the punishment in which was imposed by the court, be given services that aid in the rehabilitation to those offenders that one day will be released back into society, and to act as a deterrent to other criminals contemplating criminal acts that could result in their incarceration. Has our nations correctional system finally reached it’s critical collapse, and as a result placed or American citizens in harm’s way to what could result in a plethora of early releases of inmates to reduce the large prison populations in which independent facilities are no longer able to manage? Could these problems ultimately result in a drastic increase in person and property crimes in which even our own law enforcement be ineffective in controlling these colossal increases of crime against society?
It is estimated that from the American citizens born in 2001 upwards, 6.6% will go to prison based on current trends (Bonczar, 2003). Considering that offenders have a 49.5 % probability of reincarceration within three years as compared to 6.6% of the total population, there is a probability of the offenders’ rate increasing as high as 650% (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014). Released offenders face almost impossible odds of being reincarcerated as compared to those who have not been behind bars. Recidivism is over 75% in many states while a few states have rates that are as low as 20%. The most significant indicator of both high or low rates is the economy (Hall et al., 2015). Nonetheless, the economy should not control that when people go to prison, they may leave worse than they entered with a higher chance of returning. Ideally, it would be a great benefit to humanity if offenders left prison with significant improvement. Taxpayers’ dollars would then support a system that benefits everyone. Prisons must have a higher purpose than incapacitation since incarceration provides little assurance for society when offenders are discharged just to recommit a crime and
Inmates are six times more likely to get off death row by appeal than by execution. The argument that murderer’s are the least likely of all criminals to repeat their crime is not only irrelevant, but also increasingly false. Six percent of young adults paroled in 1978 after having been convicted of murder were arrested for murder again within six years of release (“Recidivism of Young Parolees”).