Report Name
Introduction:
Recidivism/repeated offense is the repeat of criminal activity, and it is determined by a prisoner who is released from the prison return to prison for a new offense. Rates of recidivism indicate that how many the released inmates have been rehabilitated, and the degree of severity of the punishments outside the prison. An estimated 67.5% of prisoners released in 1994 were rearrested within three years, an increase over the 62.5% found for those released in 1983(bureau of justice statistics, 2014). High rates of recidivism results in enormous costs in the area of public safety, and high rates of recidivism could lead to disastrous social costs to the communities and the offenders themselves, as well as their families. Hence, the severe punishment in order to reduce the recidivism is necessary, as well as the education for prisoners is crucial, too.
The idea for general crimes is that the severer the law is the fewer criminals exists in the country temporarily. By doing a Pearson χ2 test on the security level and prison conditions data provided by the U.S Department of Justice, the results, shows in table 1, suggest that harsher prison conditions do not reduce post-release criminal behavior, and may even increase it. (截图！！). This may due to the mind of repeat criminals would be-come more antagonistic under the severe punishment. However the database for carrying out this experiment is too small so the increasing recidivism result may not be accurate in the long run. A sophisticated analysis by Shepherd (2002) clearly shows the severer punishments do reduces recidivism, but only a little. So there have to be an additional approach to help severer punishment to reduce recidivism. Some people may argue that...
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...stice Statistics, 2014 http://www.bjs.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm
Caroline Wolf Harlow, “Special Report, Education and Correctional Populations,” Bureau of Jus-tice Statistics, January 2003, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf
Heather Mac Donald, “How to Straighten Out Ex‐Cons,” City Journal, Spring 2003, Vol. 13, No. 2, p. 24‐37.
Morgan Jacobsen march 24th, 2014Jail inmates participate in unique education program http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=29196698#FckQufotaI5Kf8Rk.99 Stephen Steurer, Linda Smith, and Alice Tracy, “The Three State Recidivism Study,” Maryland De-partment of Public Safety and Correctional Services, www.dpscs.state.md.us/doc/pdfs/three‐state‐recidivism‐studysummary.pdf.
Zimring, Frankline E., Gordon Hawkins, and Sam Kamin. 2001. Punishment and Democracy: Three Strikes and You're Out in California. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The Punishment Imperative, a book based on the transition from a time when punishment was thought to be necessarily harsh to a time where reform in the prion system is needed, explains the reasons why the grand social experiment of severe punishment did not work. The authors of the book, Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost, strongly argue that the previous mindset of harsh punishment has been replaced due to political shifts, firsthand evidence, and spending issues within the government. Clear and Frost successfully assert their argument throughout the book using quantitative and qualitative information spanning from government policies to the reintegration of previous convicts into society.
Mauer, Marc. 1999. The Race to Incarcerate. New York: The New Press National Research Council. 1993.
Policymakers on the national, state, and local levels are always finding ways to improve the nature of the reentry process. The reentry process starts in correctional facilities and helps inmates prepare themselves for release and proceeds with their transition back into society as law-abiding citizens. In comparison to the average American, ex-offenders tend to be less educated, less likely to gain employment, suffer from substance abuse, or have been diagnosed with a mental illness. All of these aspects discussed are shown to be risk factors for recidivism, which is the tendency that causes criminals to re-offend. Generally, the offender reintegration process needs to be improved by properly monitoring the outcomes for reentry programs in order to return prisoners back to society safely.
Esperian, John H. "The Effect of Prison Education Programs on Recidivism." Journal of Correctional Education 61.4 (2010): 316-334. ProQuest. Web. 2 Nov. 2013.
Stephan, J. J. (2005). Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2005. Washington: The Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Aftercare programs are used often with juveniles in hopes of preventing recidivism. Recidivism is of high concern to the criminal justice system in that the safety of the public depends on low recidivism rates. Juvenile Incarceration facilities have programs set up, such as education and pro-social behavior classes, to promote bettering the juvenile’s life. However, research has shown that the progress made while incarcerated slowly declines upon release. This is testimony to the importance of aftercare programs in preventing recidivism.
"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law-enforcement reason … Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. . . We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate – not merely to convict, warehouse and forget"(Holder). Former Attorney General Eric Holder does not dispute that prisons play an important role in the justice system. He believes that along with punishing the inmate’s prisons should provide them with rehabilitation. With the already overpopulated prison system across the US there should be alternative for lesser nonviolent offences.
How is it that ex-felons are not allowed to vote once they have served their time in prison? Why is it that a nation who is considered to be democratic like the United States does not allow ex-felons to vote even after serving time in prison? Meanwhile, other developed and industrialized nations allow their incarcerated population form part of the electorates. Is our criminal justice system objective as we think of it?
Lozoff, Bo. "Seven Ways to Fix the Criminal Justice System." New Renaissance Magazine: Renaissance Universal. Renaissance Universal Featuring New Renaissance, 21 June 2003. Web. 3 Apr. 2014. .
Tulman, J. B. (2008). Time to Reverse the School-to-Prison Pipeline. (Cover story). Policy & Practice (19426828), 66(1), 22-27.
The “Tough on Crime” and “War on Drugs” policies of the 1970s – 1980s have caused an over populated prison system where incarceration is policy and assistance for prevention was placed on the back burner. As of 2005, a little fewer than 2,000 prisoners are being released every day. These individuals have not gone through treatment or been properly assisted in reentering society. This has caused individuals to reenter the prison system after only a year of being release and this problem will not go away, but will get worst if current thinking does not change. This change must be bigger than putting in place some under funded programs that do not provide support. As the current cost of incarceration is around $30,000 a year per inmate, change to the system/procedure must prevent recidivism and the current problem of over-crowed prisons.
Esperian, J. H. (2010). The effect of prison education programs on recidivism. Journal of Correctional Education, 61(4), 316-334. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/871418247?accountid=38223
Rubin, Sol. 1963. The Law of Criminal Correction. St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company. xxv. 728 pages
Therefore, gainful employment is of utmost importance for an ex-offender who is trying to turn their life around, it helps prevent recidivism by providing legal income and giving them a productive role in society. According to the United States Department of Justice (2011) each year, more than 700,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons and over 10,000 ex-prisoners are also released from state and federal prisons every week. And few of those ex-offenders reenter society with a positive I can do it attitude. Many of them feel
All over America, crime is on the rise. Every day, every minute, and even every second someone will commit a crime. Now, I invite you to consider that a crime is taking place as you read this paper. "The fraction of the population in the State and Federal prison has increased in every single year for the last 34 years and the rate for imprisonment today is now five times higher than in 1972"(Russell, 2009). Considering that rate along crime is a serious act. These crimes range from robbery, rape, kidnapping, identity theft, abuse, trafficking, assault, and murder. Crime is a major social problem in the United States. While the correctional system was designed to protect society from offenders it also serves two specific functions. First it can serve as a tool for punishing the offender. This involves making the offender pay for his/her crime while serving time in a correctional facility. On the other hand it can serve as a place to rehabilitate the offender as preparation to be successful as they renter society. The U.S correctional system is a quite controversial subject that leads to questions such as how does our correctional system punish offenders? How does our correctional system rehabilitate offenders? Which method is more effective in reducing crime punishment or rehabilitation? Our correctional system has several ways to punish and rehabilitate offenders.