Partners In Healing Project Summary

The United States prison system is considered today to be one of the most flawed and corrupt systems of the modern world. Given this fact, it is unsurprising that one of the most talked about issues in the US today is prison reform. Prison reform is a phrase which refers to the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, establishing a more effective penal system, or implementing alternatives to incarceration. The US has spent the past twenty years gradually working to improve its prisons, and even recently strives to better the federal and state prison system as a whole. One of the main goals of prison reform is reducing recidivism, which is the chance of an incarcerated person re-offending. One of the main ways to do this is to give inmates ways to spend their time that will better them and prepare them to re-enter society as a fully productive, rehabilitated citizen. This facet of prison reform is the basis for the Prison Reform and Redemption Act of 2017. This bill, which was to be reviewed on Wednesday, April 25 but is

While many conservatives oppose the rehabilitative measures restorative justice offers offenders and demand more prisons and penalties, advocates for restorative justice counter this demand with research. Restorative justice advocates call for restitution rather than retribution. According to promoters for restorative justice, imposing harsh penalties on offenders and lengthening prison sentences is futile. “Critical theorists argue that the ‘old methods’ of punishment are a failure and that upwards of two-thirds of all prison inmates recidivate soon after their release” (Siegel, 2008, p. 188). While conservatives want to build more prisons and lock away more offenders for longer terms, supporters of restorative justice believe that a more rehabilitative approach is beneficial for not only the offender, but also the community. “The offender is asked to recognize that he or she caused injury to personal and social relations along with a determination and acceptance of responsibility. Only then can the offender be restored as a productive member of society” (Siegel, 2008, p. 190). Placing an offender in prison for any amount of time is shown to be harmful to the offender, their victim, and society. “Rather than reduce recidivism, harsher punishments may increase the likelihood of reoffending” (Siegel, 2008, p. 86). A conservative asking for more prisons would likely be met with a barrage of evidence explaining why restorative justice will and

The way the criminal justice system should handle crimes has always been a debated subject. For over the last forty years, ever since the war on drugs, there are more policies made to be “tough on crime”. From then, correctional systems have grown and as people are doing more crimes, there are plenty of punishments for them. In the mid 1970’s, rehabilitation was the main concern for the criminal justice system. It was common that when someone was convicted of a crime, they would be sentenced to prison but there would also be diagnosed treatments to help them as well. Most likely, they would have committed a crime due to psychological problems. When they receive treatment in prison, they can be healed and would not go back to their wrong lifestyle they had lived before. As years have gone by, people thought that it was better to take a more punitive stance in the criminal justice system. As a result of the turnaround of this more punitive criminal justice system, the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. The U.S. has a higher percentage of the

As the imprisoned population in the United States grows and American culture changes, rehabilitation is becoming popular among these alternatives to a standard prison system. Rehabilitation when referring to criminal justice are programs and methods used to assist prisoners in reforming themselves in order to avoid the habits that placed them in prison in the first place. These programs are becoming more popular due to the high cost of imprisonment and a change in American culture. Each prisoner costs forty thousand dollars each year to keep in prison(Weissmueller). This is money that is coming out of the taxes paid by United States citizens who aren’t even in the prison system. Alongside this, American culture is changing to be supporting of rehabilitation efforts as Americans see the effectiveness of criminal justice systems that include it. This was seen on a trip to Europe by U.S. prison officials; once they had seen the effectiveness of German and Dutch prison rehabilitation, they wanted to bring similar programs to their prisons (“People, not prisoners”). A rehabilitation based criminal justice system in the United States is gaining popularity, and as it does so it is earning the attention it needs and deserves.

In the United States, each day approximately 1,600 adults are released from state and federal penitentiaries to reintegrate back into the community (Gunnison & Helfgott, 2013). Reentry programs have been created all over the nation to help offenders successfully transition from prison into society. Offenders are confronted with numerous obstacles when attempting to reintegrate back into society. Ninety-five percent of offenders are released to reintegrate back into the community (Davis, Bahr, & Ward, 2013). Upon release, ex-offenders realize that despite the fact that they are no longer incarcerated, they face many restrictions. The restorative justice development rose to address the disappointment of the criminal justice framework to manage victims, offenders, and communities in an integrated way. A core focus of this development has been to expand the role of the community in advocating changes that will avert the issues and conditions related with crime and the demand for a criminal justice intervention (Hass & Saxon, 2012).

Today we see five prevalent goals of corrections including retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and restorative justice. Goals employed in corrections change over time depending on several factors including the trends of thought in society and issues within the prison system. Politics as well as prison overcrowding also factor into determining which goal dominates. Retribution has a long-standing history as the most culturally accepted goal because people fended for themselves prior to organized law enforcement (Bartollas, 2002, p. 71). Incapacitation, the dominant goal currently, eliminates the threat by placing the criminal outside society, typically through incarceration, and preventing the criminal from having the ability to commit additional crimes. Deterrence, like retribution, has continued as a goal throughout history. In an effort to reduce the risk of crime, law enforcement attempt to deter criminals from committing crimes. Rehabilitation gained enormous strength with an attempt at moral redemption of the offender. Reformists believed corrections needed a makeover as they worked towards rehabilitation. Rehabilitation places more focus on the individual rather than the act in an attempt to rehabilitate the person. America did not begin to look at the corrections system more substantially until the 1970s as the idea of rehabilitation fell (Bartollas, 2002, p. 75). Restorative justice promises to restore the victim as the offender

“One out of every 31 Americans (7 Million) are in prison, jail, or some other form of correctional supervision. A high incarceration rate in the United States has led to the prison-industrial complex, which has provided jobs and profits to legions of companies and people. The field of corrections is big business.”1 I believe that this fact is the best way in which to start my paper. The main idea of corrections, as the name suggests, is to correct the behavior that has caused an offender to stray from the straight and narrow. However, as our prison population grows and recidivism rates increase we are not only seeing our prison system fail, but we are seeing a new and emerging industry take hold in this country. Increasing prison populations and the number of re-offenders is showing a relatively obvious failure of the current system. In my time as a criminal justice major I have taken a variety of classes on criminal justice, one of the most interesting for me (aside from this class) was restorative justice. In my restorative justice class I was introduced to the idea that the criminal justice system was taking the conflict away from the victim and the community and was focusing too much on punishment and not enough on rehabilitation. I understand that some people feel that restorative justice is too lenient, that by allowing offenders to bypass jail restorative justice gives them a pass and allows them to basically get away with an offense, however restorative

There are many people who are in prisons that should not be there or should not be serving lengthy sentence. “For example, we found that 25% of prisoners (364,000 people), almost all non-violent, lower-level offenders, would be better served by alternatives to incarceration such as treatment, community service, or probation.” (Time Magazine) This is a clear example of what Restorative Justice is and should look like. Restorative Justice is a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large. Rather than imprisoning a person for petty crimes such as petty theft, tagging, having small amounts of drugs with no intent to sell, or even just a little physical interactions, there is an alternative for the punishment. As mentioned above, the person can do community service, probation, or they can be talked to and making sure that there is an understanding of where they went wrong and how to avoid making that mistake again. Everyone will always hold themselves

The Huikahi Restorative Circle Project, which began at Waiawa Correctional Facility in Hawaii, is an effective way of reducing prisoner re-entry. According to Porter (2007) the project works by bringing inmates together, along with the people that they have wronged to establish ways for every member involved to heal in ways specific to their trauma experienced. This was done by seeking ways of forgiveness while also developing plans for an effective transition back into the community. The program’s solution- focused approach centers itself on helping inmates decide what they want and how to get there, which keeps them from dwelling on the problems of the past. (Porter, 2007) An inmate upon release can only look forward and focus on the person they want to become rather than the person they were before. They cannot take back the crime they committed; however, they are able to establish themselves as a good citizen. Overall, the program’s intention is to keep the offenders crime-free by giving them positive self-identities to promote

Wilson and Davis evaluate the effectiveness of Project Greenlight, a short-lived correctional program designed to reduce recidivism rates of prisoners. James A. Wilson has a PhD in Sociology from Vanderbuilt University and is an assistant professor at Fordham University. He was the Director of Planning and Research at the Tennessee Department of Correction from 1999 to 2001. Robert Davis is the Research Director of the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., and has written two books on crime prevention and edited four more. Project Greenlight was an intensive 8-week transitional program based on a series of factors typical to successful treatement programs. Wilson and Davis Conditional Release inmates in New York City, utilizing interviews

Upon consent, the participants will be subjected to a series of interviews detailing personal aspects of their life that may be uncomfortable or difficult to discuss. For example, participants may be reluctant to respond to questions related to personal information such as relationships with their family, drug use, or inappropriate thoughts or behaviors. For this reason, it is vital to consider the participant's privacy and rights, as they could potentially feel coerced to participate or fear that their information will be shared with others. To reduce such concerns, the research team will establish a positive rapport with the participants to earn their trust and respect over a period of one semi-structured interview and two structured interviews conducted in private without the presence of correctional officers or any other law-enforcement official. In addition, we will reassure the participants that our research team is not associated with the correctional system and that the data will not be shared or made public.

One major concern is the quality of rehabilitation the inmates receive while they are incarcerated. The question to ask is “Are our prisoners being properly rehabilitated?”

There are already existing restorative practices that are place within the conventional criminal justice system at present namely probation, restitution and community service (Zehr, 1990). Admittedly they are not readily termed restorative justice programs however they are grounded in its theory.

During this type of healing circle, the offence will be discussed as well as how it affected the victim and the community and the relationship between them and the offender (Justice Education Society, 2016). Not only does the circle attempt to heal community ties, the circle also focuses on the offender and the fundamental causes of their offence (Justice Education Society, 2016). Following a healing circle that is directed towards offenders and victims, a consensus is taken to decide the subsequent steps that should be taken by the offender to correct the harms caused by their actions (Justice Education Society, 2016). These steps could include specialized counseling or treatment programs, community work service, potlatch or other traditional remedies, direct restitution to the victim or community and in some cases, unique and creative solutions emerge (Justice Education Society, 2016).

How many inmates were isolated from their communities when they had committed a crime or when they got released from the prisons? And how many effective programs can be helpful for them?Many posts-release prisoners have experienced recidivism and social stigmas due to lack of programs. In fact, restorative justice for people in prison has played a big role in our correctional systems in many different ways.Restorative justice in prison shapes our prisoner 's morals and abilities by providing a suitable technique. Although punishment may play a part in restorative justice techniques, the central focus remains on relationships between the affected parties, and healing reached through a deliberative process guided by those affected parties.( Tsui,2014). For instance, many inmates have attended into reentry programs and educational orientations when they finished their time in prison. These programs cost less money for the government, and inmates can be reintegrated into societies easily. Many post-release prisoners have avoided recidivism after these effective programs taught them the value of lives. This study will examine the importance of restorative justice in prison, which is essential for our correctional facilities. Numerous studies have been done recently which focused on this restorative justice.For example, restorative justice answers the justice question in a different way.(Toews,p.5,2006).