The purpose of this paper is to analyze art as a possible rehabilitation tool to help prisoners reintegrate effectively into society. One of the reasons America has career criminals is that they lack compassion or empathy for other people. Many of these individuals may have had home lives devoid of any moral training. Teaching compassion or empathy is not something emphasized in schools; consequently, these individuals may never have learned compassion or how to find their own passion and use it in a healthy way. Instead, we put them behind bars with other criminals similar to them or worse and the revolving door pattern continues.
The stigma of incarceration for a convict is a barrier for reintegration into society, obtaining employment, or educational opportunities. We as a society should strive to rehabilitate an offender to be a contributing member of society, once their debt to society is paid. One way to teach criminals drive, motivation, and empathy could be through studio art. These inmates could analyze themselves and the reasons that brought them to this point in time and gain some personal understanding in the process in order to change behavior and destructive thinking patterns.
Having a group art session could also benefit by helping them develop positive interpersonal relationships between inmates and the staff. The therapist is there to assist them to learn how to behave in social settings. One example is critiquing each other’s work in a productive and supportive way. They can learn that comments are not a personal attack on the art work but what the art represents to each inmate and their interpretation. Learning how to accept this kind of feedback is a very mature process. Prisoners learn to express themselves...
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...n of inmates. What we as a country are doing is not working to rehabilitate offenders. This seems to be a low cost option to the very expensive vocational skills that are offered to inmates, but they cannot seem to get jobs even with the training because of the “you just got out of prison” attitude of society. Mobile has a wonderful program called “Project H.O.P.E” that helps ex-offenders get jobs and all the help they will need to put them on the road to a new life. It does not include Art therapy because it works after inmates have paid their debt to society. It just changes the attitude among employers.
It also rally’s the support of the entire community. Right now I have a friend that works in the Prison System in California and asked her about it this kind of program and she said they only hire therapist’s. They don’t have a program like the one I researched.
Without these men getting to work and becoming productive members of society, they are barred from this opportunity and the economy suffers (Appelbaum, 2015). Devah Pager, who conducted the famous study “Mark of a Criminal Recod,” which unveiled apparent discrimination against ex-offenders in the job market, weighed in on the issue: “Prior to the prison boom, when convictions were restricted to a smaller fraction of the population, it wasn’t great for their rehab potential but it wasn’t having a huge impact… Now such a large fraction of the population is affected that is has really significant implication, not just for those people, but for the labor market as a whole (Appelbaum,
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.
Instead of prisoners just sitting in a cell doing nothing, why not put them to work, "Every inmate that works saves taxpayers $5,000 a year"(Smith). There are prisoners that work in greenhouses, that generated $57 million in revenue. As budget cuts rise working prisoners become more and more valuable. Inmates are finding ways to save money by recycling there old mattress, that would of end up in landfills. Some prisons even have their inmates help clean up dirty parks around them. While the prisoners are doing this they are learning skills , that will help them with different jobs. Prisoners that do a good job get rewarded with money bonuses. Prisoners learning how to be more responsible and understand how to become a better person will help them in the up coming future. With the prisoners getting paid for bonuses for good work this will make it feel as if it’s a real job. The experience that the inmates are receiving will help them with jobs once they are released from prison. Prisoners will strive to do better with the bonuses they are receiving, and will understand again what its like work. Now with this happening this will ensure the prisoners will have a better and healthier
With few offenders in jail, there is less of a need for employment in the jail system. In twenty-four years the crime rate has drop in New York, below a hundred thousand for the first time since 1987 (Roberts). Many jailer are being laid off. Offering jobs and training programs that keep tracks of offenders out in the communities, would be a great opportunity. Job requirements would consist of giving advices and resources of way offenders can find lawyers or services that can help their
ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION Valerie Hinton It is undeniable that mass incarceration devastates families, and disproportionately affects those who are poor. When examining the crimes that bring individuals into the prison system, it is clear that there is often a pre-existing pattern of hardship, addiction, or mental illness in offenders’ lives. The children of the incarcerated are then victimized by the removal of those who care for them and a system which plants more obstacles than imaginable on the path to responsible rehabilitation. Sometimes, those returned to the community are “worse off” after a period of confinement than when they entered.
The basic concept of educating prisoners while they are in prison is logical and simple. It makes sense to make convicts' time in prison productive. This leads to a person that, when he leaves prison, knows a better way of life than committing crimes which would inevitably send him back to prison. While making perfect sense, this solution drastically changes the concept of prison. The effects of social programs integrated with prisons start with helping direct the taxpayers money to more prolific uses, and expand to making people in America smarter, more educated, less dangerous.
Problems with crime have always been a concern to society. There are many different ideas about what causes it and even more ideas about how to stop it. Dr. Karl Menninger believes that our current prison system is not adequately addressing the motivation behind crime. In his article "Therapy, Not Punishment", Menninger says of the old prison system, "In its place should go a quiet, dignified, therapeutic programÉ" (544). He sets forth the claim of policy that criminals need to be treated with professional therapy. I don't think an introduction could be more clear than this.
For much of society prison is viewed as a facility that segregates and imprisons individuals who commit acts of crimes considered deviant from accepted social behaviors, to ensure the safety and security of the overall community. These individuals are thus handed down a mandated sentence, stripped of their individual freedoms, and are told to reflect on their actions as a means of punishment. However, this method fails to recognize the notion that a majority of these people will one day be allowed back into society, and as a result those who are released tend to fall back into old habits contributing to the rising recidivism rate that currently plagues our prisons. In recent years there has been a gradual push for the implementation of rehabilitation
Rehabilitation also involves programs in prisons that have the goal of helping offenders return back to society (Goff, 2014, p.20). Prisons have also put in place programs to assist inmates, “the goal of these release programs are to ease the transition of offenders from the institution into the community while simultaneously promoting stable employment after release” (Cullen & Jonson, 2011, p.309). If a person has been in an institution for a long period of time it is often hard to adjust to life outside, which is why these programs are important in the justice
Sung, L. G.-e. (2011). Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration. Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications.
In today's society, we are facing many changes. Our own family, neighbors, and countrymen are afraid of many dangers which influence their lives. Although many people have fear which resonates in their consciousness and unconsciousness, the United States has a comparatively low crime rate. Despite this low crime rate, America incarcerates it's citizens five times the rate of Canada and seven times that of most European democracies.(Slambrouck, Paul. 24) Our society needs to be changed. We cannot blame the individuals involved in wrongdoing but we can blame our society who raised these criminals. Of course someone who kills another human being needs to be put away in some form; but we need to make changes. We need to help as many maladjusted people as we can. There are some steps which really seem to work. There are many prison inmates who come from broken homes and have low self-esteem. What needs to be done to help these insecure people, who are at war with themselves and society, is to rehabilitate them. The problem is the prison officials do not try to teach the prisoners how to learn from their mistakes.(McGovern, Celeste. 42) What actually happens is that criminals tend to be better thefts, and have the ability to out smart the police. Our politicians need to stress how important vocational, educational, drug-treatment, and religious programs are, in order to improve the attitude and demeanor of these convicted felons. This is the only way to keep ex-con's from jail.(DeLuca, H.R. 38) Another problem with America's prison system is overcrowding. There is a huge amount of young conscienceless offenders who are entering today's prisons. Imagine trying to compact eight gallons of water in a five gallon con...
Many people idealized the relevancy of living in a civilized world, where those who break the law are reprimanded in a less traditional sense of punishment in today’s standard. Instead of just doing hard time, programs and services could and should be provided to reform and rehabilitate prisoner. Despite standard beliefs, many individuals in prison are not harden criminals and violent offenders, many of these people suffer mental illness and substance abuse Hoke
There are so many articles that talk about prisoners not getting their proper medications that they need; so why would you think they would be given any other tools for success? Some people leave prison feeling worse than when they arrived because they were not given the necessities Or, they have serious substance abuse issues then provide zero support in prison but are expected to abide by the probationary rules which expect them to go to drug counseling or abuse classes. Mind you, none of the habits are started on the inside, where requirements that need to be met are taught. There are so many creative ways the correctional system could offer help to these struggling individuals. Incorporating art alone or with drug and alcohol classes would certainly prove to be mindful coping mechanisms. This also would encourage healthy comradery and healthy hobbies that would hopefully carry on upon release. Art of any kind encourages the creative side in someone and provides an outlet that more than likely that person did not know
Recidivism directly impacts the safety of all American citizens. Through trials and tribulations we know what does not work. We know that simply locking up an offender for a period of time followed by releasing them to fend for themselves is ineffective. We can capitalize on their desire to change while they are incarcerated by supporting them and giving them the tools and skills they need to hold on to that desire. In 2009 it cost an average of $47,000 to incarcerate an inmate in California. That is money that can better be used elsewhere. By investing in life skill programs you reduce the amount of inmates who re-offend and clog up the system. You get help to those who really need and want the help. You lower the overcrowding of jails and prisons and you get the system back to what it was designed to do….rehabilitate.