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Advantages of rehab programs for offenders
Prison vs rehabilitation
Advantages and disadvantages of rehabilitation for criminals
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Individuals receive tickets for small misdemeanors; speeding ticket, parking tickets, etc., they are considered a warning. I do not believe that an individual who is suffering from drug addiction should be given a ticket and then be turned away. Placing some in prison is a tremendous and most efficient way to rid someone of their addiction. It will lower the harm reduction and criminal activity (Prison vs. Drug Rehabilitation, 2017 para. 1). Most addicts will do anything and everything to get their fix. You may think prison is not the right place for an addict but having them placed in jail will give them access to free rehabilitation programs and treatment like; “High-Intensity National Substance Abuse Program, Moderate Intensity National
As offenders are diverted to community residential treatment centers, work release programs and study release centers, the system sees a decrease or stabilization of the jail population. While the alleviation of overcrowding is a benefit it is not the only purpose of diversion. A large majority of crimes are committed while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Studies have shown that more than half of all individuals arrested in the United States will test positive for illegal substances (NCVC, 2008). Efforts to reduce crime through incarceration usually fail because incarceration does not address the main problem, the offender’s substance abuse.
Once these individuals in rehab serve there sentence the majority of them, won’t look straight to the next opportunity to get high, but the next opportunity for a better future after being encouraged in rehab to accomplish something in life, compared to someone’s attitude coming out of prison. One story involved a man named Richard with his wife Marcia. She was an addict who was often jailed for it, but Anthony believed like many others that “addiction can be overcome with proper help. He believed that the solution was to get her into a mental hospital [and] get her whatever she needs – Xanax, morphine, to get her chemical imbalance right. Show her some respect. (114)” Give her some working skills, so once she gets out she is capable of being successful but instead she kept getting “kicked down the steps” by the criminal justice system. The jailing and torture of addicts is routine to people serving cases for drug related offenses, who are often not built to endure prison, let alone jail. “The Justice Department estimates that 216,000 people are raped in these prisons every year. (This is the number of rapes, not the number of rapes – that is much higher.) (109)” This is ultimately shows the simple fact that many people are not built to endure
I believe that instead of incarcerating them they should be put in facilities that will help them get treatment for their disabilities, disorders, and drug addictions. If they are being rehabilitated the right way it will help prevent further crimes and also will help the offender go back into society and live a crime free lifestyle. For Christel Tribble being locked up actually helped her out to realize that she doesn’t want to be a delinquent. She was motivated by her mother to continue her education and to realize that it’s not worth being in the court system at such a young age because it will be a never ending cycle. For Keith Huff, he went to Kentucky State prison five times serving a total of 27 years in the criminal justice system. He was incarcerated for drug problems, which in the long run won’t help him. It would be more beneficial for him to receive help to prevent him from using drugs. If they sent him to a rehabilitation center where he can receive the appropriate help he need it would prevent him from future imprisonment. As for Charles McDuffie he was an addict and a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD. He was sentenced to prison, which was no help for him in his situation dealing with PTSD. He needed mental health treatment to help him deal with the tragedies that he was remembering from the Vietnam War. Luckily when McDuffie got out of prison his friends, who
Studies have shown that people who abused substances need at least 3 months of treatment to significantly show signs of improvement. However, best results occur with longer treatment durations. Time to Change, where patients are referred by their physicians for substance abuse treatment in Lyndale Ave Bloomington Minnesota, affirms that if you have more time in treatment center, you have more time:
The problem is that the people who are being incarcerated don’t need to be incarcerated. Instead of trying to do what is best for the offenders and help them we are just throwing them in prisons for so many years and hoping it will help. Yes, this idea is working in some cases, but in other cases throwing the person in for many years is actually making it worse. They are not getting the help or treatment they need. I spoke with a man who was in prison for many years and he said getting drugs in prison is so much easier than getting them outside of prison. He also said that most drug offenders go back to prison, because they do not get help with their addictions. They are being put into a place that is just making their addictions worse.
According to Hill Harper,“Once you have a felony conviction on your record, one of the most difficult things to do is to break the cycle of recidivism”(Hill Harper, 1966). Once you’re claimed to be a criminal the likelihood of you continuing your past behavior skyrockets. As a child, I believedI grew up believing that we all make mistakes and that the only way forward is to learn from them. To push yourself through the whatever wall that you have’ve created is the same as building your future block by block. However, it seemsseemsis seemingly impossible to push forward after society has tagged you a felon. Therefore,, the wall created seems to be built to be unbreakable. Felons have virtually no ability to be reintroduced into society, and
We also need to concentrate on programs and treatment facilities that can be utilized instead of sending people to prison. This can and has been done. When Ronald Reagan was governor, he reduced the prison system by 30 percent, mainly through sentencing reforms (Price). We cannot simply look for a quick and easy solution to this problem, such as releasing prisoners early. We need to start at the bottom, figure out how we got to this point, and address the problem there.
Works Cited Federal Bureau of Prisons : http://www.bop.gov/ Inciardi, Dr. James A., A Corrections-Based Continuum of Effective Drug Abuse Treatment. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Available: http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/contdrug.txt. Butterfield, Fox. The "Prison: Where the Money Is."
Putting these types of individuals in prison is a problem. They are put in there to get rehabilitated and help with their drug problem. The states and United States government contribute billions of dollars to prisons; where, the majority of offenders are substance abusers. However, are they really getting the help they need?
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.
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
Prisons are meant to be a place for people to be rehabilitated, but it seems it only promotes illegal activity and the membership of gangs. This causes a lot of good people who could make a positive change to their lives, turn for the worse and commit more crimes after they are released.
Suffering from an addiction is punishment enough, sending drug addicts to jail is not the solution. Addicts are suffering already by not having a place to stay. Most of the time addicts do not remember where their family is located at and they need help to get better.That is why I am saying that addicts should go to rehab instead of prison.
One of the most important aspects of defeating drug abuse is to treat those who are already addicted. An astronomical amount of people around the world suffer from drug addiction every day. Not only are the abusers hurting themselves, but they are hurting the people around them too. The moral values that one used to have are thrown out the window, which is exactly what happened to Brittany. Many people are prone to believe that they can quit whenever they please, however, this usually isn’t the case, and it is essential that they receive professional care. Brittany became clean after checking herself into a residential treatment program. “Five years later, she 's so committed to staying clean that she runs a treatment center for women, called
Sounds like a very easy and simple solution, however there is a caveat, this requires more money. In the article Making Rehabilitation Work the author tells us “Most efforts at reducing crime have therefore been directed towards incarceration, relying on its deterrent and incapacitate effects. The number of Americans in local jail or state or federal prison grew from just over 500,000 in 1980 to slightly under 2,000,000 in 2001. As a result, The Economist was able to sum up the general situation in the USA in 2002 as follows: “Rehabilitation has become something of a dirty word in American debates about crime. ... To begin with, some rehabilitation projects – particularly drug treatment – seem to work (Murray, n.d., p.6).