Janna Mooneyham
Mrs. Kirchner
English Composition I
8 November 2015
Re-entry Program Prisons have been a way for us to remove persons of danger away from the rest of society, and it is the sole purpose. The prisoners are placed into a facility and they serve their time doing just it, nothing else. However, over time we began to initiate a new concept for prisons. Prisons can be used as a place to rehabilitate people and change the path which they have been following. We have given prisoners the ability to get an education, get work experience, get therapy, and get drug rehabilitation. There is a policy which has been debated upon however in this idea of reformation, and it is the parole policy for inmates. Even though parole has been around for a long time, and there is proof it helps lower recidivism rates, there are still people fighting against the re-entry program. While the program may have a few faults they are one which are on a local level, not with the program itself and it should be allowed to continue. The basic outline of the policy is as such: Inmates with a charge of one-year or longer have an option of being reformed back into society through the parole program but must be willing to change. After being released from incarceration, the parolee will begin the transition back into society while being under strict supervision by a parole officer. It is true some inmates do return back to a life of crime, but it depends on the circumstances of their release.
Prison is obviously not working on rehabilitating prisoners because there are prisoners who are released, but they don't return to prison. Yet, the majority of prisoners released do go back to jail. Criminals think they're not going to get caught or they're so emotionally desperate or psychologically distressed that they don't care about the consequences. To lower the recidivism prisons should offer real rehabilitation to prisoners. Criminals are not all waste people; most of them could just have haven a crisis that make them commit the crimes.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Everyone knows that you can’t help someone unless they want to help themselves. When the prison system was first established, the possibilities in rehabilitation were nothing like they are
There are numerous programs available for inmates who are incarcerated, and the individuals who capitalize on these programs show subsequent improvement after being released. However, these programs only help those prisoners who are willing to change. While incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, there are numerous programs inmates can take advantage of that will help them in a variety of fields such as, “Education and Vocational Training, English-as-a-Second Language Program, Drug Abuse Education, Sex Offender Treatment Programs – Nonresidential, Skills Programs,” and more (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015). On the educational side, the BOP offers a program called the Bureau Literacy Program (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015).
Prisons not only rehabilitate, but they also deter people from going to prison. The fear of going to prison is a great deterrence for a perspective criminal. Hard life styles along with loss of freedom tend to push the criminal away from the chance of being incarcerated. Numbers show that there are fewer rapes, and fewer murders, each year, all an obvious product of prison deterrence. After all, if a person has a friend who just got out of jail, and hears all of the war stories, that person would surely not want to go to prison and end up like his friend. By making life in prison hard, the prison is doing a great job in getting the word out. Prison is no joke! They are doing their job in deterring criminals from wanting to enter the gates of hell.
It is interesting to see how our prison came about. Through the years and centuries we have been trying to find the right way to deal with criminals. Yes, criminals where dealt with brutally and maybe too brutal for the crimes committed. Today someone can commit murder and get 25 years. I don't feel that during these 25 years the criminal will really get reformed. How many prisoners get out of prison and go back to society as normal people. It seems to me that they usually have been in prison for so many years they have trouble going back to society. The only way they know how to live is how they lived in prison. In prison they get a bed to sleep in, food and clothing and they don't have to work hard for it. So they are quick to commit another crime to go back there. Seeing this happen over and over I feel that you really can't reform our prisoners or the prisons they are locked up in. In Prays essay we
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
In order for this trend to be stopped, prisons should focus more on how to reform criminals so that they can go back to their communities and do good for the people and not bring harm to those around them. Prisons should work to reform prisoners because most of them can be rehabilitated.
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
One of the purposes of prison is to rehabilitate offenders to go back into society. Meaning after serving prison time an offender should have learned their lesson and be able to become a productive member of society. it is
The idea of prison reform is somewhat interwoven with the idea of criminal recidivism. In the case of violent crime, the prison reform agenda often meets resistance in the form of public opinion, and because of this both those incarcerated and their victims continue to suffer. Lack of reform within America’s prisons is thought by some to perpetuate a cycle of crime, harming both the perpetuators and their victims.
Per the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), nearly 50% of current inmates are jailed for nonviolent offenses (Federal Bureau of Prisons, n.d.). Almost 68% (two-thirds) of inmates return to prison within three years of being released, and 77% (three-quarters) were arrested within five years of leaving (Topic, n.d.). These numbers are staggering and seem to go largely ignored by mainstream media and the public. Most of them view people in prison as deserving of it and see no need to offer them (prisoners) help. While there are some prisons that offer rehabilitation in forms such as educational programs, psychiatric treatment and various others, they are largely not implemented in prisons across the country. These programs are detrimental in helping inmates cope with prison life and ease the transition back into civilian life. Psychiatric treatment is of the utmost importance as it benefits inmates tremendously. College programs are another key beneficial factor in prison. Seeing as in prior years, a lot of inmates failed to find work after leaving jail. In more recent years, more and more programs are being added to prisons for inmates to take advantage of as well as the return of Pell grants for them. The programs allow inmates to train and become certified while in jail, and offer employment after being released. At least giving some hope to those who have none while incarcerated. Prison rehabilitation should be offered to inmates because it helps with psychological programs,
In this world we live in many feel that prisons exist to punish, not counsel, offenders. That may be true that Prisons exist for punishment, but they also have an important contribution to make to reducing re-offending by engaging prisoners in rehabilitation programs and purposeful work. Society is flawed in its thinking that by putting criminals in a place away from society we would be better off. To make it worse I am sure that more that 60 percent of Americans are against social reform because they have made up their mind that once a crook, always a crook. This is flawed mainly because it seems to assume that showing people that what they've done is wrong will always accomplish something, that punishing those who commit crimes
The third principle states, “while incarcerated, each inmate should be provided the resources and opportunity to build and maintain family relationships, strengthening the support system available to them upon release” (Roadmap to Reentry: Reducing Recidivism Through Reentry at the Federal Bureau of Prisons | REENTRY | Department of Justice, 2017).
Prison reform is a significant issue that the United States government should enforce. It would aid in creating a more organized system of incarceration. Prison reform is an attempt to improve, change, or eliminate certain conditions in prisons. It is believed that it should be enforced due to the cases of overcrowding, lack of proper education, and the lack of rehabilitation that could inform prisoners of societal values. Prison reform would increase the self-esteem that was diminished in the prisoner’s personal history. Prison reform is significantly important as it will heighten the amount of self-worth in the prisoner and cause a decrease in the population of prisoners who return to a life of crime. Recidivism, or chance of recommitting a crime, will therefore be reduced. Prisoner who are released will not have all the negative ideals or influence from the prison that is usually spread until their release. Prison reform will help society if the increase in education and decrease in overcrowding is ensued upon the prison system with this policy.
They have to fill out and sign an application the happens to be furnished by a case manager. If the criminal does not complete the application then the offender is provided the waiver to the application. After that, the caseworker the will notify the criminal when his parole hearing is to take place. The parole hearing is an opportunity for the criminal to present their case and why they think they should be able to receive parole. The commission determines if the person is eligible for parole according to the type of sentence the criminal recieve when he was convicted. The earliest time the criminal can be parole is called the parole eligibility date. If the criminal is granted parole they must wait to be released until on or after the parole eligibility date (Frequently Asked Questions). If granted parole the parolee will then be recieve back into the community. Only 15 states do not use the parole system today while the rest of the 35 states do. The first state to use the parole system was New York. “In 1910 Congress established the U.S. Parole Commission and gave it the responsibility of evaluating and setting the release dates for federal prisoners”( Parole). Also those of a very serious crime must complete eighty-five percent of their original sentence before they can be released from prison and sent back into the real world.