The Importance of Prison Reform

964 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A conclusion for prison reform

In this world we live in many feel that prisons exist to punish, not counsel, offenders. That may be true that Prisons exist for punishment, but they also have an important contribution to make to reducing re-offending by engaging prisoners in rehabilitation programs and purposeful work. Society is flawed in its thinking that by putting criminals in a place away from society we would be better off. To make it worse I am sure that more that 60 percent of Americans are against social reform because they have made up their mind that once a crook, always a crook. This is flawed mainly because it seems to assume that showing people that what they've done is wrong will always accomplish something, that punishing those who commit crimes will deter others from following the same pattern. The problem with prison is that prisons are not a place of rehabilitation.

There are people who steal and sell drugs simply because they have no other means of survival. There are people whose lives in the outside world are so terribly difficult that for them, that prison life is a cushier existence than their ordinary day-to-day existence, and many of these people intentionally commit crimes so they will be arrested and thrown in jail, simply so that they can get a decent meal and a bed. These people are then introduced to major offenders, who have not been rehabilitated and become worse than their "mentors." For these people, even if they feel that their criminal existence is indeed a moral wrong, prison does nothing to make them repent or change their way of life.

A poorly planned criminal justice program can incapacitate the goals of reintegration of ex-criminal into society. With the way things are in prison prisoners are c...

... middle of paper ...

...way to isolate such individuals from the latter and help them instead of turning them into hardened criminals. Prison life and the exclusive association with other criminals is a training school for a life of crime for the majority of petty criminals. The un-rehabilitated criminals after serving a sentence in prison are released into society more hardened in a life of crime than before. The questions we need to ask are: Will longer prison terms help to deter criminals from committing more crimes when they are released? How many more tax dollars will be taken from other programs to lock up these offenders? If the system we have now doesn't work, and neither do longer prison terms, should the system itself be reprogrammed? The current prison system is what is really wasting taxpayers money because they get nothing out of it. Keeping people in prison is expensive.

Show More
Related

  • The Rise of America’s Prison Empire

    1930 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Reforming the U.S. Prison System: Rehabilitation over Incarceration

    1766 Words  | 4 Pages

    Prisons and correctional facilities in the United States have changed from rehabilitating people to housing inmates and creating breeding grounds for more violence. Many local, state, and federal prisons and correctional facilities are becoming more and more overcrowded each year. If the Department of Corrections (DOC) wants to stop having repeat offenders and decrease the volume of inmates entering the criminal justice system, current regulations and programs need to undergo alteration. Actions pushed by attorneys and judges, in conjunction current prison life (including solitary confinement), have intertwined to result in mass incarceration. However, prisoner reentry programs haven’t fully impacted positively to help the inmate assimilate back into society. These alterations can help save the Department of Corrections (DOC) money, decrease the inmate population, and most of all, help rehabilitate them. After inmates are charged with a crime, they go through the judicial system (Due Process) and meet with the prosecutor to discuss sentencing.

    Read More

  • The Overcrowding of Prisons

    1779 Words  | 4 Pages

    People may say that the problem with overcrowding of prisons does not affect them, but if you’re a taxpayer this prob...

    Read More

  • The Penal and Judiciary System: The High Cost of Incarceration

    1857 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are several fundamental problems within America’s penal system. First, the name “penal” system indicates that the main focus is punishment. Punishment is meant to “teach them a lesson,” i.e. deter the convicts from future crime. Reasonable or unreasonable, punishment often results in the punished resenting and holding negative feelings for the punisher. If society is the punisher, inmates will not be motivated to go back into the general populace as a valued and productive member of society. Furthermore, prison has been commonly known to be both a training ground for more sophisticated crime as well as psychologically hardening nonviolent or innocent inmates that were falsely accused.

    Read More

  • Prison Reform In America

    1883 Words  | 4 Pages

    Maybe if I saw more reports on how prison has improved our society and the criminals who live among us, I would see why we should work on reforming our prisons. Until then, it does not seem to be working. We trust in the government to provide for our safety, but we must take responsibility among ourselves. To understand that the current system does work and that its intent is not to provide a safe society. History has shown us that. What we have done or continue to do will not make this a safer place to live. The problem is not to reform our prison system, for this won't stop criminals to commit crimes, but to find ways and means to deteriorate them from doing the crime.

    Read More

  • We Are Spending Too Much On Prisons

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    Prisons require an abundance of money to be run properly and effectively. By using taxes to pay for prisons, the American public pays to support the lives of inmates and all of their needs. Prisoners require food, drink, beds, supplies for doing other activities and all of the overlooked things in normal life that go along with these necessities. Inmates have special needs, like all of us do. Inmates require medical care, for example, some have AIDS or other diseases that require medicine which cumulate large bills over time.

    Read More

  • Therapy, Not Punishment

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • US Prison System

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many people who are critical of the US‘s prison sysetm; the idea of locking up those who commit crimes against a society simply to keep them from doing harm. Many say that more rehabilatation is necessary to improve these individuals and, therefore, society as a whole. What are some ways of doing this? Do you agree/disagree with this view and why? Is the prison system currently in place the best option for society? 2 pages, double spaced, 12pt. font.

    Read More

  • Current Issues in the Correctional System

    1045 Words  | 3 Pages

    The correctional system is not a perfect system as it does not address the key issues that cause offenders to continue to be imprisoned after only one year of release. The system has been evolving from a punishment base system from the 1970s to a complex system designed to beyond the punishment to deal with the rehabilitation of the criminal mind. This allows the individual offender to recognize their faults, receive treatment and be released from the correctional system as a productive member lacking terminal deviant behavior.

    Read More

  • Prison Reform

    2208 Words  | 5 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • America’s Prisons and Their Effects On Society

    1532 Words  | 4 Pages

    Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means of punishment.

    Read More

  • The Effect of Prison on Inmates

    1768 Words  | 4 Pages

    Punishing criminals by putting them in a correctional facility such as prisons can be successful in repenting the criminal as they would reflect on their own actions, allowing the guilt to make them better people, probably even seeing their own faults through other prisoners. Prisons give criminals a chance to rehabilitate themselves by using the facilities there present such as the counseling and seminars given. The fact that prisons house a lot of criminals that associate with each other has created a “criminal community”, an atmosphere where crime inhibits; therefore criminals can only aid each other out to become better “crims”, learning the tricks of the trade as well as toughening each other up through the highly abusive nature of the criminals there. Health wise, prisons can highly be dangerous and lethal to the prisoners; such diseases as AIDS from homosexual relationships and drug use is prevalent, as well as male rape, and even female rape, even some become mentally insane. In general however, prisons aren’t a nice place to be.

    Read More

  • The Problem Of Overcrowded Prisons

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although it may not seem like a major problem to most people in the United States, prisons are becoming overcrowded, expensive to maintain and have little to no effect on the moral discipline of inmates. The current prison system is extremely inefficient and the purpose of prisons has been completely forgotten. According to Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the primary purpose of prisons is to punish, to protect, and to rehabilitate. Not only is there an increase in prisoners, but there is a rise in the number of repeat offenders. Alternatives such as counseling, drug rehabilitation, education, job training and victim restitution must be better enforced and organized. People do not understand the severity of the problem mainly because

    Read More

  • Rehabilitation Will Reduce Crime

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Thesis Statement On Convicted Criminals

    131 Words  | 1 Pages

    Shayne, I truly appreciate your point of view regarding convicted criminals. The fact that you are open-minded enough to be concerned with the rehabilitation process is interesting. I am captivated by your initial thesis statement and definitely interested in learning more about your point of view and how you will defend and support it, particularly from the financial aspect. The debt that is incurred for taxpayers when a convicted criminal is incarcerated can be mind-boggling, yet when that cost is compounded by the rehabilitation process, it is undoubtedly overwhelming. I sincerely look forward to reading more about this subject, especially from someone with a background in the criminal justice system, with first-hand knowledge.

    Read More

More about The Importance of Prison Reform

Open Document