Are Prisons Effective in Rehabilitating?
Warren Buzzell Jr.
| M.S Biomedical Engineering | B.S Manufacturing Engineering |
Each and every year, more and more people are finding themselves behind bars. A crucial reason for this is recidivism. Recidivism is a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior. In other words, it is when people recreate criminal behavior. For example, most people in prisons have been offenders of past crimes. In the year 2002, America had placed over 2 million offenders behind bars. In the year 2005, the government tracked 404,638 state prisoners from 30 different states. They have discovered that more than a third were re-arrested within the first six months and more than half by the end of the first year. Further studies have shown that 67.8% have been re-arrested within three years and 76.6% within five years of leaving prison (Dickson, C., 2014, para 1). This is resulting in an increase in prisons and money spent by taxpayers. The increasing number of people in U.S. prisons point out the many flaws in our justice system. Incarceration in the United States is approximately seven times the average in Western Europe. If people are coming out of prisons and being sent right back, are they even being rehabilitated? It is very expensive to keep prisons open and taxpayers pay for most prison expenses. The Bush Administration currently spends $46 billion of taxpayer money annually on prison expenses (Should, 2009, para 7).
In the early 2000s, over eleven percent of American men were guaranteed time in prison throughout their lifetime (Pearlstein, M., 2011, Para 6). By July 2009, there were approximately 140,000 offenders currently serving life sentences in U.S. prisons and jails. Out of those convicted criminals there are roughly 100,000 eligible for parole. About 41,095 of the estimated prisoners will never be paroled. Among the 41,095 criminals, there are 2,574 criminals who are facing life sentences for crimes they committed as juveniles. Juveniles can be sentenced to life without parole in up to 45 different states (Sentencing Juveniles, 2009, Para 1 – 3). The rapid growth of prison populations take a huge toll in our economy.
U.S prison population has grown from approximately 500,000 to 2.3 million in the last 3 decades. We spend nearly $70 billion annually to place adults in correctional facilities and our youth in juvenile centers. We also spend around $7.3 million on supervisors for offenders on probation and parole. 75 percent of incarcerating funds are drawn from the state’s general fund. States are finding themselves with less discretionary money due to the tens of billions of dollars put toward prison. The largest prison population in the country is located in Los Angeles, California and holds more than 170,000 individuals. More than a billion of dollars are spent every year to house paroles in neighborhoods that are housed by less than 20 percent of the city’s adult residents (Hawkins, S, 2010. Para 1, 2, & 6).
Every year more and more prisons are becoming overcrowded with offenders. In fact, some inmates in Arizona are forced to sleep in tents on prison grounds due to overcrowding (Should, 2009, Para 5). People in support of prisons may argue that some people are so violent and uncontrollable that they must be kept in confinement for the safety of others. Supporters feel that these people do not deserve a second chance. But how does placing non-violent offenders in the same confinement as murderers and rapists help them?
Prison grounds are not safest environments for someone attempting to rehabilitate themselves. Most prisons are being filled with poor and uneducated people. Legislators have been passing “get-tough” laws which are packing the nations jails and prisons. Although these laws are flooding our social institutions with convicts, they are not doing much to reform them so that they can emerge as better citizens and contribute to society. Actually, violence remains a serious problem in prisons and jails, with gang assaults, rapes, riots and beatings by officers. There are also high rates of diseases which put staff and the prisoners at risk. The prison environment is dangerous to both inmates and staff (PRISONS, 2006, Para. 7). Legislators will also argue that people in jails and prisons belong to be there. I believe that incarcerating someone for years with no signs to reform their behavior is both expensive and unjust. Because of the war on drugs in America more people are being incarcerated for non-violent crimes.
There are over 500,000 people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails for drug-law violations. Supporters believe that drug offenders have broken the law and deserve to spend time in prison. But, if the goal is to get drug offenders rehabilitated, sending them to prison limits their opportunity to do so. According to a report released by Boston University School of Public Health drug policy project Join Together:
The criminal justice system…insists that we need to lock up drug offenders and throw away the keys, but it neglects to tell us that those offenders will return to our streets, still using and still dealing. It pushes prison as a cure, when the truth is that merely locking someone up rarely ends addiction. We must stop pushing low-level, nonviolent substance abusers through a revolving door of ineffective punishment. (Have, 2012, para.39)
In fact, many prisoners continue their drug habits while inside. Imprisoning drug offenders’ increases taxes and capacity in prisons while doing nothing to treat and diminish their addictions (Have, 2012, Para 1, 2, 48 & 53). If prisons aren’t doing their jobs, we should be looking for new solutions.
Instead of locking criminals away from society, why not rehabilitate and prepare them for a new, more improved way of life? It is impossible to prepare somebody for life outside of closed bars, while still behind bars. As an alternative to incarcerating people for minor offenses, offenders should be under close monitoring with a guarantee of punishments and penalties for every rule violation they commit. What if, instead of being sent to sanctions paid for by citizens, offenders were required to participate in a series of other events? Events such as drug and alcohol testing and position monitoring via a G.P.S. anklet. This could enforce a curfew and decrease the risk or another offense being started. If done correctly we could decrease the number of crimes and use for pointless prison cells. This would lead to a reduction of a fraction of the costs in money and suffering. Angela Hawken, from Pepperdine University, has been found in studies of the Hawaii HOPE program and the Washington State WISP program and is known for South Dakota’s 24/7 Sobriety. She found that long time drug abusers were able to stop when consequences became certain and immediate. As a result, there was less drug abuse, less crime, and less incarceration. If we put offenders under intense supervision, while gradually relieving their penalties for good behavior, we may be able to improve their chances of getting jobs after serving offenses (Kleiman, M., 2013, Para 1-3). Some states even favor short-term justification in order to rehabilitate large number of inmates at once. (Prison Overcrowding, 2009, Para 4).
Is incarceration effective in rehabilitating inmates? No. If our prisons were rehabilitating inmates, incarceration in the U.S. wouldn’t be seven times the average in Western Europe. Prisons bring more negatives than they do positives. With problems within prisons such as, gang violence, rape, and riots, it makes it extremely difficult for people to start over a new life easily. Prisons are not doing their job to sculpt convicts into better people so that they can begin helping society upon return. People will argue that the purpose of prison is to separate criminals from society. Some believe that the conditions are so radical that they actually scare criminals into changing. I strongly feel that incarcerating someone for years with no signs to reform their behavior is both expensive and unjust. Many U.S. citizens also believe that the two million citizens behind bars is a result of 30 years of the government trying to decrease the public’s concern about crimes (Prison Overcrowding, 2009, Para 4). There are better ways to rehabilitate people than incarcerating them. Punishments like community service can be a good alternative to helping offenders while enabling them to give back to society. Hopefully in the future we can find a way to decrease high our prison populations.
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