Should Prisons Be Effective?

The tension between rehabilitation and punishment has been increasing dramatically. This is because there have been sharp rises in the prison population and repeat offender rates. When one area is over emphasized in relation to the other, there is the possibility that imbalances will occur. Over the course of time, these issues can create challenges that will impact the criminal justice system and society at large. (Gadek, 2010) (Clear, 2011) (Gatotch, 2011)

Traditionally, there have been four justifications for punishment: deterrence, confinement, rehabilitation and retribution. While these methods can be flawed at some point in history they served as primary reasons for the justification of punishment. Recently, there has been an epistemic shift in thinking about punishment where now it is focused on retribution and incarceration. The emphasis on this method has lead to an increase in incarceration and the rise of a prison system. While we acknowledge that there will always be a need for society to punish criminals in order to protect the rights of individuals, however a prison/prison system is not the correct way to handle such problems. Currently the prison system is being used an economic tool for private companies to exploit cheap labor from inmates. Known as the prison-industrial complex private enterprises are now able to build more prisons to “benefit” society and themselves as the prison population grows. Since the 1980’s the growth in prison

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.

By the lack of rehabilitation programs in the state and federal prison systems, the chances of convicts releasing and returning back to prison increases rapidly. The lack of rehabilitation is one of the most leading causes to an offenders relapse or to a new crime that will be committed within 3 years from the offender’s release. A rehabilitation program

It is thought that punishment prevents an individual from committing a future crime, or reoffending. Despite this belief, research examining the effects of incarceration and prison conditions has demonstrated

Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means

The main idea of a prison is to help rehabilitate offenders and to stop them from relapsing back into a world of crime, but instead prisoners are constantly returning time and time again. We must find a way to incarcerate those who need to be behind bars, and deal with other criminals in a different manner. I believe we should reduce the use of prisons, and rethink our punishment for certain crimes.

Preview of Main Points: Today, I’m going to explain to you what happens when prisons don’t offer rehabilitation programs and the solution to the problem.

Rehabilitation assumes criminal behavior can be improved with non-punitive methods. Rehabilitation, although non-punitive, usually occurs along side punishment. For instance an incarcerated person may be given many rehabilitative options. Mental health programming, substance abuse counseling and even education programming exist in modern day correctional facilities. A judge may sentence someone to attend rehabilitative programming as a part of probation or it may be included as a stipulation in a plea agreement. At the core of rehabilitation is the thought that a criminal is flawed, often through no fault of their own. Poverty, mental health issues, or childhood trauma may all contribute to a criminal life and rehabilitation attempts to aid in a sort of recovery. If a person is cured of their issues, perhaps they will not fall back into their previous pattern. (Siegel & Senna, 2005).

The criminal justice system has various programs in place to better control the deviants that commit our societies crimes. However according to Przybylski (2008) prisons do not reduce the rate of recidivism and even said that longer imprisonments resulted in an increase of recidivism rates. This means that one of the practices of the justice system is not doing much in preventing crimes, especially from those who already committed crimes. This is to say that there should be another alternative to controlling crime. According to the Transforming Rehabilitation, paper (2013), there is a decent amount of evidence that supports the effects of using cognitive skills programs on criminals reduce recidivism. Are prisons still a viable option when

Notably, one of the most beneficial factors of rehabilitation is the reduction of the recidivism rate. Prisoners need rehabilitation as soon as criminal behavior begins. Other major benefits of rehabilitation are the opportunity for education, vocation training, and socialization skills. Incarceration is the main concept civilians think of when someone mentions a prisoner; however, not too many think of other processes to discourage someone from recommitting any crimes. Any prisoner should be able to use rehabilitation. Every prisoner in the United States should have the privilege to have rehabilitative care. While restrained, offenders need support and resources to rehabilitate. To take hold of a criminal and do nothing to change their behavior

People usually think that prison will teach individuals a lesson, which it really does not. If they are locked up and never get the chance to learn from their mistakes, how will they ever make a change? They will be influence by more criminals. People should be punished, but it is not always good. Prisons today are lacking space. If the burglar was told that his time was reduced; he would probably not commit that crime

In theory, rehabilitation works, unfortunately as there are objectors to punishment of the corporal kind as there are objectors to the practice of rehabilitation. Most would side on the idea of rehabilitating prisoners, as there is no denying its success in the past, however the question of abandoning or greatly reducing corporal punishment or long term incarceration stands as a highly heated debate. With prison overcrowding and solutions being sought after, rehabilitation does offer a way to braid the inmates back into a successful life inside our communities, but just as corporal punishment does not have a 100% success rate, its friend rehabilitation lacks it as well. As a society we have to find ways to lower the costs of prisons on our fellow man and to be able to have inmates return to society in a productive manner. Rehabilitation seems to be the most modern weapon of choice for our modern and more

In society, there will always be people that take and steal and kill to get what they feel they deserve. People that behave in such a way need to be separated from the citizens of society that are trustworthy, caring, and helpful in order to prevent the malicious citizens from taking advantage of their productive counterparts. There is no argument that individuals that break the law need to be punished so they know it is wrong. There are many types of punishment, but the one that contains the most people and best protects society from rampant crime is prison. While it is typically agreed upon that prisons are useful and even necessary, but what is typically argued is who should oversee the prisons. There are two main beliefs, the first is that the governments should control the prisons to insure prisoners are treated in the appropriate manor, public prisons. The second viewpoint is that prisons should be run by private companies, private prison, which will help cut costs, because storing inmates is quite expensive. Although each side has valid arguments, neither is really ideal. Private prisons are not regulated enough and public prisons are too expensive, so the ideal prison is a combination of the two. Private prisons are the base that the ideal system must be molded from and it must be molded by creating several laws. The government must create these laws ensuring the prisons do not purposely return inmates to society with the intentions that they will commit more crime,

Corrections or Penal system is the term given in America to describe the governmental entity that is responsible for punishment and surveillance of convicted criminals. The scope of corrections is one that covers many areas in the criminal justice system, such as incarceration, parole and probation. The common belief or ideal is that the purpose of the correctional system is to deter criminal behavior and also punish criminal behavior. These ideas of deterrence can be broken down into two theories, general deterrence and specific deterrence these two theories are what most penologist study to understand how to stop criminal behavior. Many who believe in general deterrence states that the American correctional system is not tough enough on crime, therefore that’s why we have high rate of criminal behavior. Those who align with the theory of general deterrence, believe in applying the death penalty, mandatory sentencing and other forms of severe punishment to criminals to