Correctional Institutes Do Not Correct or Rehabilitate Prisoners

Placing criminally-minded folks with others who share the same worldview can be very counterproductive. But, there are important reasons that we continue to use prisons, and there are some emerging ways to reduce the risk of recidivism among incarcerated offenders” (Cameron). To elaborate on Walden’s statement, he saying that housing criminals with criminals can be seen as teaching them a lesson for their crimes, considering how cramped, depressing and often violent prison systems can

The huge crime drop suggests that also smaller amount of people are taking part in crime or that people who do take part are obliging crimeless often. On the other hand a civilisation’s rate of crime is not a meek combination of the number of “crime-prone” entities with specific psychological or biological features. The impression that crime is communal rather than individual is a conspicuous melody in much of the finest new-fangled research. The crime drop partially imitates the effort of organisations that are unambiguously intended to escalate social control, but then again it as well imitates variations in further institutions aimed to achieve diverse societal purposes. No debate of current U.S. crime inclinations would be comprehensive without bearing in mind the U.S. prison inhabitants. For the reason that imprisonment rose so quickly, it is alluring to point the lion’s segment of the crime drop to the debilitating effects of prison. Numerous criminologists have faith that prisons are in fact criminogenic in the long-run, firming up criminal ties and unsettling non-criminal chances when convicts are unconfined. Looking at a study of the influence of imprisonment on crime, sociologist Bruce Western guesses that coarsely nine-tenths of the crime drop all through the 1990s would have happened without any variations in imprisonment, (Western, 2006). Economist Steven Levitt notes up to one third of the total drop to imprisonment. Increasing numbers of incarceration as a

The criminal justice system in America is a system designed to work in three distinct steps. The first being to fairly identify those breaking the law, second, create a process through which to both punish and rehabilitate criminals, and lastly integrate them back into society. The current system typically goes unquestioned, as those in the system seem to be deserving of what ever happens while they are in it, even once they have served their prison sentence. It is only upon deeper inspection that we begin to realize the discrimination and unfair tactics used to introduce certain groups of society into the criminal justice system and proceed to trap them there. This is the issue addressed in Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and it is through arrests, sentencing and further upon release from jail that this oppressive system is created and maintained.

Prisons socially isolate criminals to deter interference with the rights and freedoms of other members of the society. Under this isolation, the criminals are given another chance to reform their mistakes and come back form where they have come from and they argue that reforming the sentencing system will increase the number of criminals in the society

Examination of the macro sociological perspective of incarceration and completed educational programs will confirm or oppose if rehabilitation on inmates can make a difference and create a safer environment for society. Inmate human development and socialization are critical and an affair of importance. Although, inmates are placed in unpleasant conditions the well being of the human mind must be taken into consideration to be mended and preserved. The prison system is known to be dangerous and a degrading environment leading prisoners to become resentful, hostile, and feeling hopelessness. Therefore, inmates could commit more crimes out of anger causing more danger to society.

We will discuss two models for inmate subculture: the deprivation model and the importation model. The Deprivation model suggests that “the prisoners suffer and get frustrated due to the absence of liberty, privacy, free access to goods and services, heterosexual relationships, autonomy and security” (Stojkovic, Stan & Lovell, 1998). This theory clearly says that inmate subculture is evident through the pains of imprisonment. While the importation model says that the subculture is evident because the prisoners are replicating the outside world. This model includes the prisoner-staff dynamic, 3 types of inmates, various racial groups within the prison population, type of offence, record of recidivism (re-offending), personality differences (prior to imprisonment), power of “politicians” (top of the inmate social hierarchy), work gangs, work groups, and sexual “deviation” which would directly affect inmate subculture. Both inmate subculture models comprise of a behavior code, a power hierarchy, an economic system for illicit goods and service distributions and “argot”

Today’s prisons do not effectively rehabilitate criminals, they are likely to reoffend and be incarcerated multiple times. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “At least 95% of inmates in the U.S. state prisons will return to their communities upon release, and more than 66% will be rearrested within three years.” (Beyer 2). The majority of prisoners who are in the same environment both before and after they were arrested continue to break the law. If jails and prisons focused more on rehabilitating criminals rather than only punishment, this number is likely to decrease. Prisons in the United states are overcrowded. This became a legal issue in 2011, when the Supreme Court required a reduction in California’s prison population by over 40,000 inmates. (Beyer 1). Cramming too many prisoners together does not benefit any party in the correctional system, and it is likely to cause more issues between prisoners. This also puts the safety of prison guards and correctional officers in jeopardy, because physical altercations between prisoners are more likely to occur. 676 per 100,000 people in the United States are imprisoned, which is the largest incarceration rate in the world. (Beyer 2). This number could decrease with a prison system that focused on a prisoner’s need as an individual. This includes education, job preparedness, and a plan for life

As offenders are getting released from their prison and re-integrating into the community, the issue at hand now is how the judicial branch and/or community can keep them from reentering the correction system. This re-entry issue may be the effect of society labeling offenders as “dangerous individuals,” once they have committed a crime. In the criminal justice system, the focus is publicizing the criminals’ wrongdoings and punishing those behaviors. The defendants’ crime is then spread throughout the community from attorneys to the courts then to the media. As a result of this spreading, people’s attitudes change towards the offenders--treating them like they are not human--and people start to distance themselves from the offenders making them feel like outcasts in their communities. This societal isolation caused by labeling can result in re-entry.

America’s “fear of crime” has developed an incarceration binge that has resulted in a disparity in America’s prisons, largely, affecting the underclass; dishonored groups caught in a symbiosis of the ghetto and prison, meaning, that ghettos have become more like prisons, and so undermined the inmate society, as such, turned prisons, more like ghettos; hence, developed a state wherein the criminal justice system is the instrument to control the poor (Wacquant, 2010). Inevitably, societal isolation, constraints the agency of the poor; their racial isolation develops environments, where residential instability, family disruption and economic inequality facilitate marginality, unequivocally deprecating poor minorities ' life chances. Largely, due to socioeconomic forces and manipulation of institutional arrangements by powerful elites, which in turn, perpetuate the inmate disparity. Thus, maintains the underclass caste, more succinctly, an American apartheid.

Durkheimian theory holds that racial discrimination and income inequality indirectly affect imprisonment through crime. This is grounded on the assumption that racial discrimination and/or lower socio-economic status that reduce legitimate economic opportunities, leads to criminal activity, which, leads to imprisonment. In contrast, conflict theory suggests that these variables have both direct and indirect effects. That is, racial composition and income inequality will have a significant effect on imprisonment when controlling for crime. This latter effect is attributed to the response of the economically and politically powerful to the real or perceived threat posed by culturally dissimilar groups (cultural conflict theory). The present study analyzes the existence and magnitudes of the direct and indirect effects of race and income inequality on the level of imprisonment. Other sociological theories suggest that when controlling for the level of serious crime, incarceration rates are directly affected by extra-legal factors. The Cultural Conflict and Neo-Marxist theories suggest

Kristin Briggs Professor Tashima Sociology 101 3 April 2015   Annotated Bibliography   1.) Introduction For my Annotated Bibliography I have chosen the subject of resocialization in prisons. Prisons are known to be total institutions, as prisoners are essentially cut off from society, and told what to do and when to do it. Upon entering a total institution such as a prison, you become surrounded by a totally different environment than you are used to.

Excluding the members of the staff, prisons consist of individuals who have broken society’s set of laws. Prisons serve as a way to implement social order in the community. Different kinds of strategies are put forward in order for the prisoners to abide by the rules and be ready to get back in society, causing no threat to the community. However, despite the rules which exist, Goffman argues that inmates still create their own culture within themselves. They adapt themselves to the rules implemented, almost as if they create their own community within their own. He mentions: “It was then and still is my belief that any group of persons – prisoners, primitives, pilots, or patients – develop a life of their own that becomes meaningful, reasonable, and normal once you get close to it […]”. Prisons have a way of structuring individuals in order to make them conform. However, the inmates manage, in different ways to create a world of their own. For instance, they would have their own language, be it signs or code words, in order for the staff and the guards do not understand what they are communicating about. Moreover, within their own culture, they also develop their own sets of values which have to be respected. For example, inmates have their own groups, whereby, in order to fit in that specific group, the member has to conform to a certain set of norms and values implemented by his or her own peers. If those unofficial rules are not respected, sanctions might take place. Sanctions would be bullying or the member being set aside and excluded from certain

Incarceration is usually used for punishment as main motives of society’s acceptance or desire for offenders to be “thrown in jail. If the punishment exceeds a reasonable correlation to the offense (i.e. punishment fits the crime) then the punished will resent the punishment and will hold ill will toward the punisher. With negative attitudes and feelings of bitterness, the incarcerated are not likely to learn their lesson, repent or go and sin no more. They are more likely to learn more efficient ways to break society’s laws from other convicts. Incarcerations as retribution tend to create a polarization between “us” (outlaws, outsiders) and them (those in power, the insiders). A high proportion of inmates came from the “outsiders” (i.e. poverty, lower class, or marginalized) in the first place. So, they view the police, the courts, and the prison as the instruments of those in power who control the systems of the dominate culture or “the man.”

Imagine receiving a life sentence for stealing a radio. Now understand that this is reality for felon Leandro Andrade, due to mandatory minimums and the Three Strikes Law (Alexander, 90). These punishments originated from the War on Drugs, which has contributed to the crackdown on drugs and the influx of prisoners. Another aspect of the convict is also often forgotten - what happens after prisons release felons? The released struggle to reintegrate back into society, after being sheltered from the outside world during their prison term. The connecting factor behind all of these problems is the structure of America’s justice and criminal system, from its inherent racism, to overzealous sentences, to how society handles prisoner reentrance as a whole.

In considering the effectiveness of prisons as total institutions, it is critical to examine the degree to which they successfully rehabilitate those who spend time within their walls. While prisons most certainly protect citizens from the most dangerous members of society, notably murderers, rapists and other individuals who present a threat to the public, they tend to fail abysmally in terms of reforming criminals who are imprisoned for lesser offenses. With the success of prisons measured in terms of the rates of recidivism versus rehabilitation that they succeed in bringing about, America’s prisons currently create a context in which approximately 50% of those who are sentenced to prison will commit another crime, and re-enter the prison, upon their release. Moreover, the current prison system is tinted by racial and economic bias, especially since the advent of the “War on Drugs,” because of the fact that poor minority group members are disproportionately represented in the context of this high recidivism. Finally, a significant degree of moral hazard is present in the contemporary prison system inasmuch as ongoing dynamics of prison privatization are encouraging the incarceration of larger numbers of