The Pros And Cons Of Prison And Educating The Offenders

While, building more prison facilities will increase the number of housing available for inmates, a more viable option would be to focus on rehabilitation programs as a method to reduce the number of inmates served in our prison system. One major problem is that the prison system fails to recognize the difference between punishment and restraint; people who are dangerous need to be restrained and should be incarcerated. (Prison Overcrowding is a growing concern in the U.S.).However, this incarceration should not be about punishment. Furthermore, research has shown that punishment only makes an individual more violent. In addition, it does not serve to change the behaviors that resulted in the original crime. However, punishing criminals only creates a vicious cycle of violence that does nothing to serve the good of mankind.

A major issue in the United States corrections system is the over-crowding of are prisons. The United States Prison System and department of corrections have become an everlasting part of our justice system, but for various reasons confinement may be causing more harm than good. More and more Americans are being thrown in prison without any signs of being rehabilitated which is causing prisons across the United States to become over-crowded. According to Etienne Benson an assistant Professor. Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. M.A. Stanford University. A.B. Harvard University; at one point the main focus of incarceration was to rehabilitate, programs were put in place to ensure that prisons gain certain skills to recover and become a productive member of society. However, the United States has taken a step back due to tougher punishments on crimes committed. Prisoners must be treated fairly with dignity and respect help them rehabilitate and get them out of the criminal justice system. Although most

A correctional facility is a prison where criminals are being held restricted. The main two institutions are jails and prisons. The type of offense and how much time he/she is given will determine whether they will be in a jail for a short period of time or sent to prison for a long period of time. Many type of criminals are held in these institutions like murders, kidnappers, drug dealers and rapists. The prison population is dramatically increasing every day and it’s becoming a major concern in the United States. The overpopulation is endangering the lives of inmates and correctional officers. There are too many inmates and not enough prison guards which is a major issue. For example, a huge fight breaks out and it’s five inmates versus another five inmates and there’s on three prison guards on duty. Three prison guards trying to break up a fight between ten inmates is a major issue cause more than likely those guards will end up hurt or possibly killed. Many criminals in the prison system are there because of the war on drugs. According to the data released January 25, 2014 by the Federal Bureau of Prisons 50% of criminals make up the prison population due to drug offenses. The next largest category is immigration and those criminals make up 10% of the population. These two categories make up over 60% of the prison population consisting of nonviolent crimes. Since the number of people convicted of drug offenses increased so has the prison population.

As we know the United States is the leading country for incarceration rates on the international scale. In the United States Americans believe justice is served through retribution and “harsh” prison sentencing. In addition with a fueled belief that incapacitation and punitive sanctions can provide public safety. Which unfortunately mass incarceration did not provide better results or safer returns. In fact, based off recidivism rates can show a country's performance in regards to prison system performances. In United States our recidivism rate is still hovering over a 40 percentile for the last 20 years.

The country has a responsibility to help those who fall short of the standards of behaviour government has set, is the rehabilitative ideal. The offenders are usually folks with the greatest social disadvantages that have forced them to a life of crime in the first place. If the policies ignore these realities, it will foster hardships that will descend disproportionately and primarily on the already disadvantaged, and intensify the anger that many prisoners find difficult to restrain upon their release back into such a society, which will lead to re-offend by these prisoners. The fundamental idea is to prevent a person from committing the crime again by removing the needs to offend. This methodology is remarkably different from the idea of ‘deterrence’, which is the idea of making criminal frightened to offend, though he may yet wish to, and the idea of ‘incapacitation’, which isolates the criminal and eradicating his physical power to offend, though he may still desires to.

On any given day when the news come in, there is an individual who is been handcuffed to be shipped off to jail or prison. This paper is meant to unfold budgeting, safety (overcrowding), rehabilitation programs, recidivism and gender related issues the prison systems in America faces. One might ask “Why the prisons systems are become so overcrowded, why recidivism rate so high and what are the prison system officials is doing to help those who are incarcerated?” Due to prisons been under staff, overcrowding is taking a drastic toll on the prison systems. Since inmates killed a correctional officer during a riot at Delaware’s largest prison in February, more than 100 guards have quit or retired early, leaving staffing levels at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Smyrna dangerously low (Galvin, 2017). Correctional officers have to be on edge when at work, due to the unknown of when prisoners will strike. Within five years of release, about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested. Of those prisoners who were rearrested, more than half (56.7 percent) were arrested by the end of the first year. Property offenders were the most likely to be rearrested, with 82.1 percent of released property offenders arrested for a new crime (Recidivism, n.d.). It is evident that the prison system is in turmoil. Recidivism is getting worst, and with the little staffing that the prison system has, they are doing the best they can. The criminal justice

The methods that are most effectively employed by the prison system depend on who you ask and what their ultimate goal is. If the goal is to reduce the crime rate in society and minimize the impact that crime and criminals have on law abiding citizens, then simply locking up or otherwise removing criminals from society is an effective method. If the desire is to take individuals who have committed crimes and reform them so that they do not commit crimes again, then prison methods that involve reformative techniques such as therapy or educational efforts such as job skills training or literacy skills training make more sense. Not only is the end goal a major determining factor in what prison system methods are deemed successful, but so is understanding that the problem of crime and the legal and prison systems is not one that is simple or isolated. Crime and criminals exist within a society that has other factors at play, such as economics and class and racial dynamics that inform how the legal and prison systems act, and the likelihood that an individual will commit crime.

Did you that there are over 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S alone today? Or that the U.S makes up 5% of the world's population, but makes up 21% of the world's incarcerated population. Although our government shells out around 80 billion dollars on the incarceration system every year, it seems to have many flaws. Many people being incarcerated are nonviolent and would greatly benefit from a more potent form of justice. As a result, it is evident that U.S should nationally institute rehabilitation programs as an alternative to incarceration for nonviolent crimes.

From a very young age people experience punishment; from school teachers sending students to the corner for a moment of “time-out”, to mothers spanking their children or taking away some of their privileges do to deviant behavior. The purpose of punishment according to its history has always been to rehabilitate the offender into a person who understands that engaging in deviancy or crime, is a wrongful act (Samaha, 439). Comparable with many of the other criminal justice institutions; or decision points, the mission of prisons has experience change throughout the years; however, according to Joel Samaha author of the book Criminal Justice Seventh Edition, general deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution have remained dominantly as the primary

The second journal was released on July 29, 2015. President Obama’s administration staff is working to end a policy that has prohibited inmates to receive federal grant funding been in force for over twenty years. Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch work to restore a program for low income students. The aid will enable inmates to develop more knowledge and trades so they can get jobs to provide for their families. The purpose of the program is to rehabilitate inmates so they may have a greater chance to stay in the workforce and become contributing members of the society in fact, inmates who participated in the program were forty three percent less likely to return to prison in three years opposed to those who did not participate.

I don’t believe harsher punishment is the solution to decrease prison population. Although people are tired of crime, some politicians are advocating harsher treatment of convicted criminals. Some political leaders contend that inmates forfeit most or all of their rights the moment they enter prison and therefore are subject to measures designed to punish rather then rehabilitate. If a prisoner is charged with robbery, he will reflect on the choices he made in committing the crime that landed him in jail (Banks, 2004). The government can also apply this act to find out the best way to assist the prisoner in correcting their behavior. Torture and beatings will not correct their behavior, but will make them more aggressive and volatile. On the other hand, introduction of short courses in carpentry, masonry, tailoring etc.; will have a positive effect as the prisoners will acquire a useful skill (Shaw, 1999). The utilitarian rule states that human beings should focus on the potential rules of an action and determine what would happen if he or she follows the rules. A rule that results to happiness is morally right and should be followed. For example in a prison, rules regarding the provision of food, medication to prisoners if followed will result in a harmonious interaction between the prisoners and the security officers guarding the prison.

According to a study done by the organization National Institute of Justice (NIJ) 404,638 prisoners were tracked after their release from prison in 2005 and half (56.7%) were arrested by the end of the first year. Prisoners with no help seem to go back to their way of life after release which usually ends up with them being back in prison. The point of prison should not be to just lock people up and release them later, but to help these people get away from the life that got them locked up in the first place. A rehabilitation program can help prisoners to talk about and work through the issues in their lives. Having group sessions to talk about problems or reasons why they have been incarcerated may help them to figure out what issues they

Crime is an astronomically serious issue that is growing day by day. A group of people claim that in order to decrease the crime rates governments should place the offenders in prison for a long period; however, others do not believe this measure will not be such an effective way of solving the problem.

Throughout mankind, the ideas of power and greed have pushed people to work harder, although sometimes this can come at a cost. An example of greed hurting other human lives can be commonly known as the prison complex. This idea establishes that inmate work for a fraction of the average wage of a civilian. In fact, since America must house the inmates they build one prison per week (Franklin). One of the reasons contributing to the construction of the prisons were the drastically increasing amount of criminals. Many people became incarcerated in jail for minor offenses. The Prison Industrial Complex pushed companies’ profits, thus then leading to the company to push for more people becoming imprisoned for more labor.

In a courtroom, a young man awaits his fate. He was caught with a small amount of cocaine. He expects 5 years in prison, but the judge offers up something else. The young man can either do time, or work with a program to finish his college education and get a job, and the young man instantly chooses schooling. Since around the 1970’s, America has had rising incarceration rates (Brooks). “The growth of America's Prison population is currently 3 times the rate of its generic population growth” (Pew), but incarceration does very little other than punish and most likely scar inmates. However alternative programs have arrived. Here in Philadelphia, one such program is The Choice is Yours. Because incarceration isn't exactly helping prisoners, The Choice is Yours is much cheaper than maintaining prisons, and is an excellent reintegration program.