The Importance Of Writing As A Form Of Personal Freedom

As of the end of 2015, there were 1,526,800 prisoners in the United States being held in state or federal correctional facilities. Every year, thousands of people are released from jail or prison. Most people who are incarcerated today will eventually be released. Most of these individuals return to a life of freedom without the skills they need to survive. Recidivism rates suggest that many of these individuals will re-offend within six months of release, and most will reoffend within three years. This is not because they’re bad people; it’s because they are trying to thrive in a system that sets them up to fail.

From 1973 to 2000 the imprisonment rate in the U.S has increased by a multiple of four, while the actual crime rate saw no such increase over that period. (Visher and Travis, 2003, p. 89-90) Historically, the prison system in America had always been marred with inadequacies and failures, specifically in rehabilitating prisoners. The significant increase in incarceration rates have put an even greater burden on the already inefficient prison system. In reality, the prison system does not actually function as a means of rehabilitating prisoners, and real purpose of the institute is to basically keep the “deplorables” of society away from the public eye. It serves as a tool to degrade members of society to the bottom of the social ladder and strip them of their most basic rights. For many prisoners, rehabilitation comes in the form of “corrections” which is largely characterized by the humiliation, abuse, and subjugation of inmates by correction officers. This form of rehabilitation is largely malicious and ineffective in its procedures and outcomes. Often times inmates, leave prison more emotionally and physically damaged that they were upon entrance as a consequence of the dismal conditions they were subjugated to. The current high rates of recidivism have testified to the fact that our prisons have failed as a deterrent. As a result, it must be

The subject of prison evokes fearful and violent images seen in movies or on television; outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water that are intended to repulse people and deter them from committing crimes and ending up in such a position. Unfortunately, the reality of the American prison system is just as troubling as the dated stereotypes surrounding it. Despite its success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the modern prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society. It has proven to be an inefficient and ineffective system by focusing on punishment over rehabilitation, leading to issues such as overcrowding, wasting taxpayers’ money and a high recidivism rate.

Just as the number of people in prison grows, so too does the number of people leaving prison. Research shows that 95 percent of all prisoners in the United States are released at some point (Katel 2009). The Department of Justice reports that more than 600,000 prisoners are released each year (John Oliver 2015). This means that hundreds of thousands of people reenter society and are expected to have learned from their time behind bars. Unfortunately, most of these people released back into society are not properly prepared. As a result, they end up back in prison.

Combating recidivism and the continuously growing prison population has been an ongoing problem that has been steadily draining federal, state, and local budgets. In a vain attempt to reduce recidivism the criminal justice system made sentences harsher, which in turn lead to more prisons being built to house the booming prison population. For almost 30 years’ researchers have sought answers for why so many criminals return to crime within five years of being released. These

Many inmates are incarcerated in prison for years and sometimes decades, then released back into society with little education or training. Studies have found that 19 percent of inmates are entirely illiterate, and 75 percent are functionally illiterate and read at a 4th-grade level. Therefore, without education, vocational training, or the ability to secure employment, many formerly incarcerated people maladapt to society and return to crime and prison. Thus, a vicious cycle of re-incarceration called inmate recidivism is created.

Currently there are 2.4 million inmates in state and federal prisons across the United States. (Cullen, 2011) Each year, more than 700,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. Statistics indicate that more than two-thirds of state prisoners are rearrested within three years of their release and half are reincarcerated. High rates of recidivism mean more crime, more victims and more pressure on an already overburdened criminal justice system. A topic of much discussion is what happens when the inmates are released back into society? Are they prepared for the “outside” world? Has the institution done enough to prevent recidivism? It can be said that prison based education is a means of rehabilitating and re-direction. If someone is released with only the same knowledge, skills, and abilities they entered prison with, then they are likely to become involved in the same activities as prior to being incarcerated. This action is known in the criminal justice community as recidivism. Recidivism is a tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior. (Merriam-Webster, 2014) Recidivism is the largest concern for prison system professionals. The goal of most prisons is to rehabilitate the offender, not to punish per say. If the inmate is to return to free society, prison officials need to attempt to reduce or eliminate the possibility of committing criminal offenses upon release. Currently prisons provide various forms of education to

The prison system often proves ineffective at reconditioning prisoners to free life due to the high potential of recidivation soon after release, the decrease in education and other programs in prisons, and the physical and emotional results of the conditions in which prisoners live. Although some may argue that the threat of a prison sentence deters potential criminals from pursuing a life of crime, the experience of prison may result in increased criminality, subverting the goal completely. Firstly, many prisoners recidivate, or reoffend, soon after release. Of released prisoners, “44 percent... were rearrested within one year and 68 percent were rearrested within 3 years” (Mears). Since nearly one half of prisoners committed another crime in one year after their release, the rate of recidivism indicates that the prisons fail to recondition inmates to free life. This may be due to the failure of rehabilitation programs offered in prisons; many recently released prisoners end up back in prison soon after release due to the limited reentry programs (Pager 2). Rehabilitation efforts in prison aim to reduce recidivism by changing a person's mindset from one of crime and criminality to one of compliance with laws and consideration for others; however they do not often accomplish this goal well, if at all. Rehabilitation efforts in prisons produce less positive effects than those offered in the community (Clear 132). The lack of results likely stems from the poor environment

The United States criminal justice system has failed to rehabilitate criminals. Even after being penalized for their crimes, prisoners continue to commit crimes without learning that what they did was wrong from being incarcerated and are sent back to prison. Jails are set up to aid those imprisoned by helping them obtain skills that will hopefully reduce future incidences and allow them to act like the citizens they should be. However, punishing criminals is not as productive as many think it is. This is shown by the increased imprisonment rate from 250,000 in 1976 to almost 2 million by 2003 (Lynch 26, 49). Instead of learning how to work towards handling their problems, inmates are expected to learn from their mistakes by being isolated from society and even sometimes from human contact. Since the prisoners are unable to learn from their delinquencies after doing time in prison, many recommit offenses and find themselves back in jail. Prisons should become more education based, to achieve this goal the overall costs of prisons has to decrees. According to Shadd Maruna, director of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice for Queen’s Law, “of the more than 100,000 released from prison each year, 70 percent will return to prison.” The re-incarceration is mainly due to the incapability of these convicts to re-adapt into society. After being detached from the real world, it is problematic to adjust to changes, depending on how long the prisoners were

The United States has the largest prison population in the world and it is growing, approximately 2,266,800 adults are incarcerated. Currently 52 percent of prisoners are going back to prison. Literature can be a meaningful way to rehabilitate prisoners, it will help them to express their feelings and their emotions through writing, more job opportunities when they are released from prison or even in prison and decrease the percentage of people returning back to prison. As a result,the issue is a very controversial one, and it leads to debate.

As compelling as all the three theories involved in the incarceration of criminals are, some hold more merit than others due to the persuasive strategies and points they put across. In this respect, I feel that prison as a school of crime deserves the most merit of the three observed. Low-risk inmates who were not career criminals upon conviction seem to be the most vulnerable candidates to the negative effects of incarceration and recidivism. The prison culture found within every prison results in prisonization affecting every inmate. Misconduct in the sense of definition per institution is nearly unavoidable in some cases. It becomes a matter of not getting caught as opposed to zero engagement. Every person in prison is exposed to enhanced

When a prisoner is released, he or she must establish a new life. Whether the prisoner’s new life is good or bad, it is up to him/her to end up where he/she wants to be. As prisoners are released to society, they begin their lives by finding a job. However, they might not be possible due to their criminal record. They might appear dangerous or a threat, because of their criminal record, when in reality they just made a few mistakes. According to Tyjen Tsai and Paola Scommegna, writers for the Population Reference Bureau, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world! This is caused by severe sentences for petty crimes such as shoplifting and loitering. The purpose of prisons is to rehabilitate and educate the public about braking the law, yet many prisoners’ crimes are not met with equal sentences but too severe. America has high incarceration rates because of laws making it easy to get into prison, poor rehabilitation programs, and for the incarceration of people whom should not be.

America has a problem: With over 2.3 million people incarcerated, we haven’t done enough to prevent reoffending. According to the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP), nearly seven in ten people who are formerly incarcerated will commit a new crime. Additionally, every five in ten people will be behind prison bars within three years. Because 95 percent of those incarcerated will eventually rejoin society, it’s imperative we develop a solution to keep our communities safe and allow prisoners to reach their full potential.

In the movie, The Freedom Writers Mrs. Erin Gruwell (Hillary Swank) plays a role of a dedicated teacher who did all she could, to help her students learn to respect themselves and each other. She has little idea of what she's getting into when she volunteers to be an English teacher at a newly integrated high school in Long Beach, California. Her students were divided along racial lines and had few aspirations beyond basic survival. Mrs. Gruwell was faced with a big challenge when a group of freshmen students showed her nothing but disrespect which made it hard for her to communicate, teach and understand them. However, Erin Gruwell was determined that no matter the cost she would teach her students not only

When the average person thinks of jails and prisons, they typically think of horrible criminals being locked up in order to protect the rest of society. They think justice has been served, and those who did the crime are now doing the time. But what goes on inside a prison, and inside the minds of the inmates? What about after those offenders have served their time, and are now being released back into the general public? People don’t really think about how prison affects a person’s mentality, or how incarceration impacts both relationships the inmate currently has, or ones that will develop in the future. Although it isn’t something most people think of first, incarceration is an experience that can have a negative psychological impact on a person for quite some time.