A Prisoner's Ability To Participate In Prison Rehabilitation

People were concerned with the fact that some offenders served significantly longer periods of time than others for the same crime. Community treatment programs were also criticized for not being able to do much about preventing future criminal activity while offenders were under supervision. Studies concluded that some strategies worked and other programs did not significantly reduce crime. The lack of confidence in correctional programming sparked a national debate about the efficacy of rehabilitation and influenced treatment offerings within all community-based programs. One positive outcome of this was the increased attention paid to the different types of offenders and situations in which certain treatment modalities will perform

The United States has more than 2.3 million prisoners housed in approximately 1,800 state and federal prisons (Ingraham, 2015). Each one of these has their own formal summary or mission statement that lists the goals and values of that institution. These institutions offer several different programs for prisoners, to include educational services and vocational training that is meant to help them reintegrate back into society once their sentence is complete. I will look at four different adult correctional systems in the United States and discuss their mission statements and the programs they offer.

Ms. Thompson’s proposal is she submitted to the Pioneer Institute Better Government Contest. The proposal is a Release Reform Community (RRC) Program to reduce the recidivism rate in the United States. The high recidivism rate in the U.S. is what she believes is from how difficult for an inmate to re-enter society after imprisonment. The program that Ms. Thompson proposed (RRC) is to address the lack of fundamental skills and structure needed to modify negative behaviors that have been long-ingrained in the correctional system. From her experience in the correctional system and speaking with other inmates, they feel that a program such as this will give them the best opportunity to live a healthy, productive life once released.

Community Based Corrections programs, also known as halfway houses or Residential Reentry facilities, were established as an alternative for prisoners to complete their term of incarceration in a community setting. Residential Reentry facilities provide a structured environment for low, minimum, and high-risk offenders while allowing them to integrate back into society. Specifically, Residential Reentry facilities provide offenders the opportunity to gain employment, establish financial responsibility, and obtain suitable housing. With the overcrowding of prisons, the ability to participate in Community Based Correction programs enables the convicted criminals as well as prison staff to lessen the loads that come with working in a prison as well as improve the lifestyle that comes with incarceration. As with all things in life, there are positive as well as negative outcomes to the participation of these convicted criminals in community-based programs. In viewing the positive and negative outcomes, the end

Correctional treatment programs have long been thought not to be effective in lowering the recidivism among criminals; Martinson (1979). Researchers have done countless studies and surveys only to find out that many of these studies and programs work and nearly the same number of programs do not work, depending on what component was or was not a part of the studies. Knowing that all programs does not work for all criminals is a no brainer, however, finding a good mixture of what does work and for what percentage of criminals is a beginning to duplicate that program with a few minor adjustments in the programs.

The prison population in the United States has been growing steadily for more over 30 years, a great portion of this population are returned offenders. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports, each year more than 650,000 offenders are released into communities with at least 5 million of the ex-offenders being under some form of community-based supervision (James, 2010). In an attempt to curtail the rate of recidivism, the Bureau of Prison contracts with Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs) to assist inmates approaching release. RRC’s provide safe, structured, supervised environment, as well as employment counseling, job placement and financial management assistance (Prisons, 2017).

When the term corrections is mentioned, the thought of incarceration is the first to come to mind. This is the case for as of the end of 2013, there were 1,574,700 people serving time in state and federal penitentiaries (Carson, 2014, p.1). This alarming number gives reason for the need of alternatives to incarceration. Avoiding imprisonment does not translate to a lenient punitive sentence for the alternatives can just as easily repair harms to the victims, provide benefits to the community, treat the drug addicted, and rehabilitate offenders (FAMM, 2013, p.1). The use of programs that offer an alternative to incarceration can reduce the amount of people in the prison system that is living on taxpayers’ dollars.

In the United States, the prison institutions, and county jail’s population numbers are growing rapidly. Offenders are receiving lesser sentencing and more federal funding disbursed to reentry and reintegration programs to reduce the cost of incarceration and to reduce recidivism. A recent Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) study of 40 states found that in 2011 the average annual total cost per inmate was $31,286, and the number of incarcerated people have quadrupled reaching 1.4 million in 2010 (Center on Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice, 2013, p.128). The criminal justice system has found alternative ways to deal with the overcrowding and cost of incarceration. I believe that community based programs benefit the government,

Since 2002, The United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world, and many of those imprisoned within the U.S. will be released and rearrested within three years (Langan & Levin, 2002). Unfortunately, research has been mixed shown that the time spent in prison does not successfully rehabilitate most inmates, and the majority of criminals return to a life of crime almost immediately. Most experts believe that many prisoners will learn more and better ways to commit crimes while they are locked up with fellow convicts. There is a combination of programs and environmental conditions that impact the recidivism rates. The majority of prisons exist to protect the public and punish the offender (French & Gendreau, 2006; Langan &

We can all agree that an important goal of the American criminal justice system is rehabilitation. It expects that most, if not all, offenders to learn from his or her wrongdoing and become productive members of society (Ballenstedt, 2008). It is this thinking at the heart of a community-based initiative that is designed to bring law enforcement officials together to form a single concerted effort to identify and address patterns of crime, mitigate the underlying conditions that fuel crime, and engage the community as an active partner (Wolf, Prinicples of Problem-Solving Justice, 2007).

As a country, we should care about all of our citizens and work toward bettering them, because we are only as strong as our weakest link. When it concerns the issue of corrections it should not be a discussion of punishment or rehabilitation. Instead, it should be a balance of both that puts the spotlight on rehabilitating offenders that are capable and willing to change their lives for the better. Through rehabilitation a number of issues in the corrections field can be solved from mental health to overcrowding. More importantly, it allows offenders the chance to do and be better once released from prison. This paper analyzes what both rehabilitation and punishment are as well as how they play a part in corrections. It also discusses the current reasons that punishment as the dominant model of corrections is not as effective as rehabilitation. After explaining rehabilitation and punishment, then breaking down the issues with punishment, I will recommend a plan for balance. A plan that will lower incarceration rates and give offenders a second chance.

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.

Probation and parole each require funding in order to operate correctly, but the government has placed focus in other areas of interest, leaving community corrections with little funding to operate. Probation and parole are each positive alternatives to locking offenders in jails or prisons, they are also cost effective alternatives. Probation and parole, while they have lower than ideal success rates, have much higher success rates than prisons or jails, where the recidivism rate dominates incarceration. With community corrections providing such positive alternatives for the government, it is obtuse that the government does not provide much support for community

As the imprisoned population in the United States grows and American culture changes, rehabilitation is becoming popular among these alternatives to a standard prison system. Rehabilitation when referring to criminal justice are programs and methods used to assist prisoners in reforming themselves in order to avoid the habits that placed them in prison in the first place. These programs are becoming more popular due to the high cost of imprisonment and a change in American culture. Each prisoner costs forty thousand dollars each year to keep in prison(Weissmueller). This is money that is coming out of the taxes paid by United States citizens who aren’t even in the prison system. Alongside this, American culture is changing to be supporting of rehabilitation efforts as Americans see the effectiveness of criminal justice systems that include it. This was seen on a trip to Europe by U.S. prison officials; once they had seen the effectiveness of German and Dutch prison rehabilitation, they wanted to bring similar programs to their prisons (“People, not prisoners”). A rehabilitation based criminal justice system in the United States is gaining popularity, and as it does so it is earning the attention it needs and deserves.

Criminologist and politicians have debated the effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation programs since the 1970’s when criminal justice scholars and policy makers throughout the United States embraced Robert Martinson’s credo of “nothing works” (Shrum, 2004). Recidivism, the rate at which released offenders return to jail or prison, has become the most accepted outcome measure in corrections. The public's desire to reduce the economic and social costs associated with crime and incarceration has resulted in an emphasis on recidivism as an outcome measure of program effectiveness. While correctional facilities continue to grow, corrections make up an increasing amount of state and federal budgets. The recidivism rate in