Pros And Cons Of Prison Reentry Programs

Problem Statement

With over 700,000 people are released each year from state and federal prisons in the United States. However, the transition from incarnation and reentering back into society is more challenging than what many adjudicated felons initial anticipated. So much, in fact, over two-thirds of persons released are rearrested within three years of release. Prison reentry programs have been seen as a means to assist incarcerated individuals with a successful transition back into a society which helps to reduce the recidivism rates in the United States. This research study intends to identify the critical challenges of prisoner re-entry into society, and how does prison reentry programs help to alleviate those challenges. This exploratory

research study focused on the challenges that many released persons face when reentering society, and the impact that those challenges may have on the likelihood of recidivism and how prison reentry programs impact the likelihood.
Background/context:
The United States prison system is the largest in the world.

With over 2 million offenders incarcerated yearly, and an estimated 7 million people under some form of correctional control. Which is more than ever before in America history, more people are affected by the grips of incarceration, which includes the offender, their family, the victim of the offence, their family, and the community and taxpayers who expected to foot the bill for the confinement, rehabilitation, and prosecution against the alleged offenders. Today, an astonishing 67.8 percent of persons released from custody are rearrested within three years, after the initial release. While another 76.6 percent are rearrested within five years. According to the Congressional Research Service, recidivism is defined as “the re-arrest, reconviction, or re-incarceration of an ex-offender within a given time

frame.
For many years, the United States approach to crime has been a get-tough approach. Many researchers have agreed that the United States prison system is based on very outdated structure, that stride to punish the lawbreaker, opposed to trying to correct negative and deviant behavior. Thanks to the several acts such as The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (The Act of 1994), that adopted longer sentences, incorporating harsh sentencing guidelines, and mandatory minimum punishments. More individuals are not only spending time within confinement but at longer stretches of time than in the past. Although most criminologists agree that there is little relationship between rates of crimes and the rates of imprisonment, Americans have seen the prison population double several times from 1970 to 1994 alone. In the year 1995, the United Nations adopted its standard minimum rules for the treatment of inmates. Which stated that imprisonment was only justified when it could be used to foster offender rehabilitation justified sentences; However, American prisons appear to favor security and retribution over approaches aiming towards rehabilitation continuously.

Significance of this study
American taxpayers spend an average of $31,000 per year on each inmate currently incarcerated.

If however, a person is released and reconvicted additional cost for prosection and rehousing the offender is added to the already extensive bill. So much in fact that the costs of recidivism continue to increase and become a more significant share of state budgets.Moreover, the cost of most Reentry programs ranges from $3,000 to $4,000 per individual. If however, a small reduction in the recidivism rates could occur, it could yield significant budgetary savings (Bloom, 2006).

Today, approximately 2.7 million children in the United States have a parent who is incarcerated(Burt, 2014; Council of State Governments, 2015). Children of incarcerated parents are more than likely to be denied adequate support and care, thus creating a community based on lack familial structures, as well as destabilization and increased deterioration (Burt, 2014; Burt, 2010). Although, most people within the American Society could find themselves incarcerated.The most likely inmate one would find in prison would be one from a low socioeconomic background and a minority

offender.
With over half of all released prisoners returning to back to custody after either being convicted for a new crime or for violating the conditions of their release (James, 2015). It is important to explore why a system that is structured to rehabilitate deviant people and return them to the community once they become a law-abiding citizen if failing in such drastic measures. The purpose of this research project is to identify commonalities in transitional barriers that released offenders face against released offenders that completed a prison reentry program. Focusing on the types of reentry programs that exist today, and investigating the history and changes throughout the time of reentry programs. While evaluating best practices in a successful reentry program, to promote a universal reentry program that could be implemented in state and federal prisons across America.

Three questions were considered in this study: RQ1: What outcomes are common across released offenders with a reentry intervention compared to thoses that received one? RQ2 What is the current demographics that makeup of America's prison system, and whether they have a significant impact on the success of a thriving reentry transition back into society? RQ3: How does success reentry programs differ from nonsuccessful programs?