The Three Major Correctional Reformers

In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"

The way that we deal with criminals today is center and established based on how Cesare Beccaria defined and stated it. Who is Cesare Beccaria? Cesare Beccaria is an Italian scholar born in Milan, Lombardy, Italy on Saturday March 14, 1738. He died at the age of 56 in the same city on Friday, November 28, 1794. Cesare Beccaria was an Italian criminologist, a jurist, a philosopher, and a politician who is widely considered as the most talented jurist [3] and one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. Recognized to be one of the fathers of classical criminal theory and modern penology, he is well remembered for his writings on “On Crimes and Punishments” written in 1764, which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical school of criminology by promoting criminal justice. (citation)

Beccaria is known for being the founder of the Classical School. He wrote An Essay on Crimes and Punishment that was based on transforming punishment to corrections. He proposed reorientation of criminal laws toward more humanistic goals. On page thirteen of our textbook it shows the four of his newer ideas that were incorporated into the French Code of Criminal Procedures and in the French penal Code.

The Three Penitentiary Act was passed in 1891. The Act was passed in response to overcrowding of state prisons. Before the Act, offenders at a federal level, who were sentenced to more than a year, were held at state prisons. Those who were convicted at federal level, but were sentenced to less than a year, were held in local jails (Seiter 2017 p.129).

Prison reform is an issue that has been a concern for a long period of time. The problems that Angela Davis brings up throughout her book are only some of the problems with the prison system. Whether it be the influence of corporations on prisons and legislators, the role that racism plays, or the safety of the prisoners. Her solution to these problems is the abolition of jails and prisons by creating policies that will reduce the number of people sent to prison. This would destroy the prison system as the main concept of punishment. The ways that she aims to do this is by providing physical and mental care to everybody, demilitarize schools, and change the justice system to one based around reconciliation rather than retribution. I find myself to agree with many of the concerns that she lists and believe her argument to be somewhat convincing. However, I do not believe that a complete abolition of prisons is what is necessary to fix the prison system. This paper will explore the concerns that she voices in her argument, how convincing I find them, and what I believe to be the flaws in her conclusion.

Over the years, crime has been prevalent in society. Today’s Criminal Justice System adopted Cesare Beccaria’s reform from the Classical School of Theology. Beccaria’s ideas have been implemented into the reformed criminal justice system to exercise effective punishment. When a crime has been committed, the punishment is to equal the crime committed. The idea of effective punishment in today’s society has one goal of deterring others and to be for the public good of society. Beccaria believed in utilitarianism and thought of it as a more rational approach for crime and punishment. Utilitarianism purpose is the produce happiness and prevent pain and it was the ideal goal for society. Despite the influence of Beccaria’s idea on the criminal justice system, certain procedures have been incorporated that do not fit his criteria of effective punishment such as plea bargaining.

When people think of reform movements, they often look for one key sign, and ask one key question of whether that the reform was a success. Did the reform create a lasting change in the way people view the institution that was reformed? All the great reformation movements, from Horace Mann and his education reforms, to Martin Luther, and the Protestant Reformation, to the civil rights movement, all created lasting change in the minds of the average person. One other reform, often overlooked historically is the Prison Reform movement. As the world shifted from 18th to 19th century ways of life, many key aspects of life underwent tremendous change. As the United States gained their independence from Britain and began to shape their own

In 2011, I spent time serving in prisons with a church organization who’s goal was to change the systemic problems within the prison system. This caused me to examine all aspects of inequality and oppression that disproportionately affects people of color.

In America, crime rates are going up and prisoners are being released from prison with a wrong sense of direction resulting in their finding themselves back behind bars within a short period of time after being released for an action that could have been prevented if the proper precautions had been taken. Prisons need to put forth the effort to resolve these issues and make America’s streets secure again. The criminal justice system in prisons is a rising concern in this country that is affecting many and it is time it was improved by reforming the inside of prisons, providing prisoners with more when released, and keeping them under surveillance after release to help ensure they will not return to prison, thus keeping crime at a lower rate.

She argues that the reforms suggested by the conservative party would cause unintended harm to the people they are attempting to help. The author forms her argument by analyzing the prison reforms initiative put forth by republican politicians. Bruenig concludes that these attempts to bring needed modification to the criminal justice system have not improved the lives of disadvantaged people. By focusing on cutting prison costs the author states, the conservative’s suggestion for reform will fail to provide support to community programs that help people stay out of prison. This would make the reform meaningless. It would also rid communities of prevention 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

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

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.

Beccaria believed in replacing the harsh physical punishments with confinement and having the length of confinement fit the particular crime. This Classical Theory approach to punishment was very appealing to the community leaders and quickly spread from state to state and into the prison systems. This was the first major step in prison reform as we know it today.

This essay will be comparing the competing ideologies of two key thinkers in criminology; Cesare