History Of Correctional Rehabilitation Programs Of California

The US Correctional System gives a lot of offenders the chance to change their ways, by helping the rehabilitate them self’s. Rehabilitation is the attempt to reform an offender or also used a rehabilitated meaning the reform of an offender (Schmalleger). Forms of rehabilitation in the correctional system would be court ordered by a judge for an offender that is addicted to drugs or alcohol to be sentence to rehab to kick there addiction. This can be very helpful for repeat offenders that crimes they commit are due to their addiction to drugs/alcohol. There are different kinds of programs to help with the rehabilitation of an offender, programs such as “Office of Program Accountability and Support: This office supports the division by providing support services, and overseeing data collection and analysis of participation within programs offered to inmates and parolees. Office of Offender Services: This office is broken into two separate units. One supports the In-Prison Programs, and the other supports Community and Reentry

The correctional system has three main goals: punish, protect the community and rehabilitate the offender. However, it is unclear how well the modern U.S correctional system achieves these goals and whether the money invested in the correctional system might be better spent. These are some of the points I will cover regarding what I think about the correctional system.

Since the tough-on-crime era began in the 1980s, the California prison system and parolee population have grown tenfold. This is in great part due to the three strikes law that passed in 1994. This law made it a requirement for any offender convicted of a felony with two previous felonies to go to prison for a minimum of twenty five years. This law sent many people to prison for longer sentences due to non-violent drug offenses, when in actuality they should have been sentenced to rehab. Prison overcrowding is an important topic that all Americans should care about, since according to The Bureau of Justice Statistics, over ninety-five percent of all prison inmates will be released at some point, with over eighty-five percent of them being placed under parolee supervision. Of this population, sixty-five percent suffer from substance abuse issues and meet the need for treatment for their addiction. Drug and alcohol abuse, specifically drug abuse, and crime are inextricably related. Unfortunately, the majority of those released from prison who suffer from addiction issues are not treated while incarcerated, and as a result end up back in prison.

In a fight to reduce overcrowding, improve public health and public safety, and reduce the costs of criminal justice and corrections, federal, state and local leaders are constantly looking for alternatives to incarceration. A number of strategies have been put in place to save public funds and improve public health by keeping low-risk, non-violent, possibly drug-involved offenders out of prison or jail while still holding them accountable and securing the safety of our comminutes. These programs have been put in place to help those who don’t necessarily need to be in jail, get their priorities straight while also holding them accountable for their actions. They have been put in place to help reduce incarceration rates, but also help those who may have mental health issues or substance abuse issues that have caused them to make bad decisions (Treatment Court Divisions).

California, the Golden State, a place where people from around the world come to for the

The proliferation of prison overcrowding has been a rising concern for the U.S. The growing prison population poses considerable health and safety risks to prison staffs and employees, as well as to inmates themselves. The risks will continue to increase if no immediate actions are taken. Whereas fighting proliferation is fundamentally the duty of the U.S. government, prison overcrowding has exposed that the U.S. government will need to take measures to combat the flaws in the prison and criminal justice system. Restructuring the government to combat the danger of prison overcrowding, specifically in California, thus requires reforms that reestablishes the penal codes, increases the state’s budget, and develops

The California Youth Authority which is now known as the California Division of Juvenile Justice has gone through years of criticism. This institution is part of the division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that offers several programs such as education, training, and treatment for California’s most serious youth offenders. The California Youth Authority became the go to alternative for the increasing rate of juvenile offenders that committed the most heinous crimes. This institution first opened in 1943 as a reform school, and today it functions similar to adult state prisons. Since that time over thousands of inmates were incarcerated inside of the California Youth Authority. In March of 2000, proposition

Many criminals are sent to jail on a day to day basis. Once they have completed their sentence they are faced with many problems once they are “free”. These problems can be but are not limited to housing, employment, and substance abuse. The prisoner, once they are released, has a tendency to go back to their old ways and to continue the life of crime they were a part of prior to prison. To avoid this, while a prisoner is in prison, the staff creates a reentry program for the prisoner. The reentry program takes affect once the prisoner leaves prison. These programs are created within the community to help the offender from committing new crimes and to integrate them back into society. These programs are also created to help with

Life in Incarceration did not define the end of a normal life within the state of California. In fact California's prison system brought a sense of purpose to those behind bars. In Doing Time in the Depressions second chapter, the process and key fundamentals of California's "Honor Camps", was system in which inmates were given salary towards the work they did as prisoners.Within the text it states "...California's road camps made a distinct contribution both to the solution of the prison-labor problem and to penology," (California, para. 1). Prisoners receiving paid labor for their work, and a decreased amount of physical punishment put a different light toward the Incarceration system. The camp created a positive impact within California, redefining the Prison Industry entirely.

The idea of sympathetic release of ill and elderly prisoners is not new. In 1994, Professor Russell published consideration of medical parole and compassionate release programs of district and fifty states of Columbia. Only three

Some prisons do offer programs, but others do not; the inmates also have to take advantage of the option of it. Prisons with better rehabilitation programs can provide the support criminals need to be reintegrated back into society so that their rate of recidivism is lowered. With the help of rehabilitation programs given to the prisoners it can improve a prisoner’s chances of when getting out into the real world. For those prisoners that do not feel the need to use it, they are wrong about that. It is shown on many accounts that the number of inmates that are released from prison who do not take the programs are eventually returned back to prison.

In my opinion, the Senate Bill 618 of San Diego has shown great progression in the decrease of offender reentry. This bill has provided offenders who qualify to participate with the means and tools needed in becoming productive members of society. Through these types of bills offenders receive the assistance they need to sustain their addictions, if any, and become productive member of society once again. Educational, substance abuse, and employment programs are extremely useful when deterring offenders from reentering the prison system. Without these types of programs, I’m sure the prison reentry count would carry on to rise greatly throughout the coming years. Senate Bill 618 is not without its faults (i.e., cost and funding), but is an

The good in rehabilitation is when it works. “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink”. The same principal is at work with rehabilitation. The programs can be made mandatory, but that doesn’t mean the inmate will adapt their behavior to accept the programs. Rehabilitation comes from inside a person. The person must want to change his behavior and make use of the programs available to them.

The use of community corrections would be beneficial to the United States. Because it will help, reduce the overcrowding in jails and prisons. With community corrections, offenders will be able to remain as a productive member off society while still serving their sentence. The majority of incarcerated people have committed nonviolent offenses (drugs, burglary, and other). By taking them out of Jail and place those in community correction programs it will help cut the prison population.

Criminologist and politicians have debated the effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation programs since the 1970’s when criminal justice scholars and policy makers throughout the United States embraced Robert Martinson’s credo of “nothing works” (Shrum, 2004). Recidivism, the rate at which released offenders return to jail or prison, has become the most accepted outcome measure in corrections. The public's desire to reduce the economic and social costs associated with crime and incarceration has resulted in an emphasis on recidivism as an outcome measure of program effectiveness. While correctional facilities continue to grow, corrections make up an increasing amount of state and federal budgets. The recidivism rate in