Pros And Cons Of Rehabilitation In Prisons

The topic to be analyzed is rehabilitation in prisons. Up until about the eighteen-hundreds prisons believed in the rehabilitation ideals. After that, the idea that sprung forward was strict and harsh punishment, and because people in poverty increased, crime increased with it. People bought into the idea that prisons should be a living hell as a deterrence to keep people from committing crime. In some places they would put prisoners in solitary confinement for long periods of time to think about their crimes. Many were given a bible for reading. However, being in solitary confinement for lengthy sentences without any socialization, many went insane. The tough on crime just doesn’t work, a good example for this is the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Having education programs that allow those in prison to earn a GED will lessen the chance of inmates returning to prison. It is hard for ex-offenders to get jobs as is, and not having an education makes it harder considering many places require a minimum education of a GED or a high school diploma. Davis et al (2013), found that former offenders have a six percent less employment than similar men that have never been incarcerated. Many inmates lack a high school diploma and many employers are reluctant to higher ex-offenders. Davis et al. (2013) states “we examine employment outcomes, because many of the programs we reviewed were explicitly geared toward providing inmates with occupational skills that they could use to procure employment following release from prison”

Rehabilitation prepares inmates that are within a few years of release to integrate back into society. It should be required in prisons to have rehabilitative programs. They are indispensable for the inmates’ health, and it gives the occupants of prison a chance to change for the better. There is an understanding that it will not work right away or for some, however giving inmates programs to help fight their drug and alcohol addiction will have higher chances of not returning to prison for those reasons. The education such as a GED will help inmates get jobs as more places that hire require such. There should be a limit understanding that some will find it unnecessary for them to get an education at all while they are there, such as setting a limit on how high they may go in their education depending on how long their sentence is. Giving those who work for it should be allowed for higher education it would show dedication to returning to society a better person that will be less likely to get rearrested. Having policies in place for rehabilitative environments would need to be in place for several years allowing time to ensure that it truly works. This time will allow future researchers on the issue to review the recidivism rates and how well the programs help inmates upon returning to