Pros And Cons Of Rehabilitation As The Dominant Model Of Corrections

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)

Community corrections is continually changing and has been for the past one hundred years. From the early to mid-twentieth century onward it has used three major models, the medical model, community model, and the crime control model. The major turning point for the American community corrections system that led to corrections as we know it today was in 1974 when What Works? - Questions and Answers About Prison Reform by Martinson was published. The system changed practically overnight across the nation. The notion of rehabilitating offenders was dismissed and a more punitive “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality took over. Presently the corrections system is still working in the crime control model, but professionals are trying to restructure how we deal with criminal offenders during and after incarceration. The difficulty in the restructuring is finding the balance between punishing criminal offenders proportionate to their crime, but also rehabilitating them to be productive members of society once they are released so that they do not recidivate.

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.2 million people currently in the nation’s prisons or jails. Incarceration is a widely argued topic with many understood viewpoints, and it directly deals with three main important correctional topics which are deterrence, rehabilitation, and recidivism. The definition of incarceration is the state of being confined in prison. Not only does incarceration affect people directly by taking away their freedom, but it also affects their lives once their incarceration is served. There is not a whole lot to do about people being incarcerated, however, there may be ways to help the incarcerated once their freedom is restored.

When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of

Today’s prisons do not effectively rehabilitate criminals, they are likely to reoffend and be incarcerated multiple times. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “At least 95% of inmates in the U.S. state prisons will return to their communities upon release, and more than 66% will be rearrested within three years.” (Beyer 2). The majority of prisoners who are in the same environment both before and after they were arrested continue to break the law. If jails and prisons focused more on rehabilitating criminals rather than only punishment, this number is likely to decrease. Prisons in the United states are overcrowded. This became a legal issue in 2011, when the Supreme Court required a reduction in California’s prison population by over 40,000 inmates. (Beyer 1). Cramming too many prisoners together does not benefit any party in the correctional system, and it is likely to cause more issues between prisoners. This also puts the safety of prison guards and correctional officers in jeopardy, because physical altercations between prisoners are more likely to occur. 676 per 100,000 people in the United States are imprisoned, which is the largest incarceration rate in the world. (Beyer 2). This number could decrease with a prison system that focused on a prisoner’s need as an individual. This includes education, job preparedness, and a plan for life

Jail and prison populations are swelling as a result of increased crime and sentencing in the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system has piles of cases that need to be sorted and suspects who need to proceed with their trials. It is clear that the system needs an adjustment. One significant method to reduce the population in jails and prisons is to changing the rehabilitation strategies. Rehabilitation is important in the criminal justice system, but even more significant in keeping individuals out of jail, out of prison, and out of trouble. Mass incarceration does not work, simply put. It has been utilized in the past and based on that, has been proven to not work effectively. The state of Virginia decided to do away with parole in the year 1995, causing increased prison inmates to remain in the system, even though they should be out paying their own taxes instead of taking them from taxpayers while sitting inside of a prison cell. An individual must serve at least eighty-five percent of his or her sentence whether or not that person has proven themselves to be accepted back into society (Roeder, et al, 2015). It is clear that this method is outdated and only increases the amount of money taxpayers must put towards the swelling prison system

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

Factors that increased the risk of incarceration, if not addressed while in prison, may well impact the rate of future incarceration? Focusing prison resources on known factors for incarceration as well as providing programs that improve or help bring an offender into the parameters of societal norms, should at the very minimum indicate that a primary responsibility of incarceration is to release offenders who are more able to function within society. This paper would address the conditions that correlate with risk of incarceration and recidivism. Counter strategies may minimize recidivism thereby significantly reducing prison

A long-term study conducted by Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the average five-year recidivism rates of 404,638 prisoners released in 2005 is 76.6% among thirty states in America (Matthew, Alexia, & Howard, 2014, p. 1). In other words, most of the released prisoners did not escape the cycle of recidivism and were sent back to the prison after time. This indicates that the present American justice system, which focuses on punishment as Benson (2003) noted, fails to rehabilitate prisoners efficiently and is far from achieving the goal of reducing crime rates (p. 46). What is more, the recidivism of prisoners is becoming a great plague of society, because it not only imposes a threat to public safety but also places an enormous

of the many sentencing components used, to predispose the price an offender has to pay

This source gives statistics on the recidivism rate of prisons and the difference between rehabilitation and punishment prison types. The author points out why punishment doesn’t work and uses

People often assume that prisons are not beneficial and are only used to house criminals in the interim while they serve their conviction. Once a criminal is discharged, they will begin to break the same crimes they were to being convicted. Rehabilitation or the act of returning an object to an original, pure state, will assist in limiting the amount of repeat offenders returning to prison. Prisons across America do not provide any effective rehabilitation programs, ultimately causing prisoners who are discharged to return back to prison because they are used to practicing a bad habit. Prison is only an effective means of rehabilitating criminals if a prison offers effective rehabilitation programs that gives prisoners the opportunity to strengthen their education, career and life skills. This way discharged prisoners will

In years past, law enforcement and the criminal justice system have witnessed a paradigm shift in the expectations of the correctional system. Prior to modern societies innovative patterns of thinking, the general expectation of the correctional system was to either punish the offenders with confinement or rehabilitate the offenders from their criminally deviant ways. Unfortunately, the lack of effectiveness in the rehabilitation process and the high rate of recidivism has brought more attention to reform needed for the criminal justice system and corrections, more specifically. Society has come to expect that corrections be modeled around a rehabilitation-driven environment in order to successfully prevent offenders from re-offending.

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

Ultimately, prisons should require the rehabilitation of all offenders. Rehabilitation can transform negative behavior and prevent crime and is a superb alternative to only being confined. The increase of rehabilitation in prisons would lower the recidivism rate. Rehabilitation is imperative to prisons as it teaches offenders of a life free of crime. Retribution is not a justifiable route to take in order to prevent offenders from relapse. Punishment of prisoner promotes negative behavior. The purpose of prisons should be to rehabilitate the criminal and structure the individual into a civilized person. Overall, rehabilitation can alter an offender’s life for the better, modeling the person into a civilized individual.