Good and evil roam the earth without a flinch of mercy and are in constant motion to keep a balance in the world. Now complications in a society arise when multiple opinions create infinite versions of what's good and what bad in the world. In our present society, punishment is the main tool in offense towards crime, but does it work? The prison industry has 4 major purposes; retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. From a Wardens perspective, depraving criminals of their freedom is a way of making them pay a debt to society for their crimes but what is the actual result of the process. Based off Philip Zimbardo documentation of the Standford prison experiment and many other reports show what are the expenses of human isolation. …show more content…
the same concept applies to prisons when a inmate is sentenced to grow from his past non socially acceptable behavior in a cesspool of violence, corruption and unknown danger . The SPE observation showed systemic selection procedures ensured that everyone going into their 'prison' were normal average and healthy as possible and had no prior history of any social behavior, crime or violence. Despite the artificiality of the controlled experimental research, the data recorded captured the central psychological features of imprisonment that Zimbardo believed to be central to a prison experience. So with that being said, the individuals that were confined to the negative environment, previously unknown to them unintenally provoked survival measures by altering their mindsets to perform sadistically and malicious in order to escape or just receive more humane treatment from the guards. the fact with this is that if normal neutral human beings were confined to a prison like experience and turned evil just from the experience what could it do to individuals that have a more radical view of morality ... now in comparison with real prison complex, Someone living there is less likely to be murdered than they would be elsewhere in America. That, however, is where the good news ends. The bad news, of which there is plenty, is that the life the prisoner …show more content…
“Many of those in prison come from the most socially excluded groups in society. Many will have grown up in backgrounds where serious violence, drug and alcohol abuse are commonplace experiences. Few may have known the security of a stable home or done well at school. Crime may be seen as a survival strategy, as inevitable, or the only means of getting the things that others have.” (para.11.1) according to the National Museum of Crime & Punishment , an effort to offer better rehabilitative services to the inmates, many prisons have begun providing psychiatrists to help deal with prisoners’ mental disorders and psychological issues. Prisons also offer classroom settings in which inmates can learn to read and educate themselves. These methods are proven to have a positive effect on the prisoners and have helped many to overcome a background with little or no education. Upon their release, prisoners who have stuck with these programs are given a better opportunity to succeed and to become law abiding citizens. The problem with that picture is why that now just being implemented into the equation and not used in the first place. crimes are based off morality when it should really be judged and treated on through psychology because rape,muder,assault,grand theft are abaft behavior rooted to a deeper meaning .some people deserve to be locked away for the sake of thee society but they shouldn't be stuck in a
In the documentary Quiet Rage, the story of Zimbardo’s prison experiment is retold. In the documentary, Zimbardo develops a hypothesis that the abusive behaviors in prison is either caused by pre-existing personality traits of the inmates and guards, or the prison environment itself is the cause. He tested his hypothesis by carefully selecting 24 physically healthy, and mentally stable, male college students to participate in a “mock prison” experiment. The basement of Stanford’s psychology department was used to recreate a prison environment, complete with cells, a prison yard, Warden and Superintendent’s offices, and solitary confinement. Half of the test subjects were randomly selected to be prisoner, and the other half to be guards. They were to be placed in the environment, and their roles, for two weeks, and to be carefully observed by Zimbardo who also acted as the prison superintendent. Zimbardo planned to observe the affects the prison environment had the subjects. Due to the extremely abusive characteristics guards developed, and the swift decline of
Sometimes I think of prisons in the same way as running a daycare. The prisoners cry, and they get a pacifier. I say that because, had the inmate not done whatever he or she did to land in prison they would not be there in the first place. Prison is a place or should be of reform and rehabilitation. “Reflecting individual inmates' institutional adjustment more than anything else, the systems typically assigned inmates to one of three grades based on their behavior and offered gradually increased or decreased privileges as they moved up or down the grade structure” (Roberts, J.W., 2000, pg.102). Prisoners male and female should have to earn every little luxury that a prison has to offer. According to what is shown on television, it appears prisoners lay around most their days watching tv and partaking in card games. That does not help with rebuilding self-awareness and good decision-making skills. “Prisons
Many people believe that solitary confinement is justified given the magnitude of certain crimes. Utilitarianism, an ideology most commonly used by policymakers to defend solitary confinement, rationalizes isolation by suggesting that the purpose of all legislation “is to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief...”; however, the same principles of utility also suggest that “...if [punishment] ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil” (qtd. in Isdale). Solitary confinement, however, proves to be so unnecessarily
A 2014 U.S. National Research Council reports discovered that in 2012, around one-fourth of the world's whole detained populace was housed in the United States. On a normal, 1 in every 100 Americans are in detainment facilities (Freudenberg, Daniels, Crum, Perkins, & Richie, 2005). One correctional facility practice has come under contemplation in recent years because of the separation of prisoners into special management for the purposes of severe punishment. It is commonly known as solitary confinement, segregation, isolation, and special management. This practice frequently involves sending prisoners in small, confined (precisely a box) for months, or even years. Long-haul detainment as an option apparently is more sympathetic sentence for detainees who have carried out terrible wrongdoings, and may not be considerably more caring than capital punishment. Turns out that keeping prisoners imprisoned in isolation for long-haul sentences can have genuinely harmful impacts on prisoners.
When someone commits a crime, prisoners cannot just be lock them in prisons without letting them have a chance to learn anything. This just makes them hate society more and more because they gain more anger in the time that they stay in prisons. Prisons should provide an education to let them stay busy learning and give them advice so they can decide what they can do once they are released. If prisons do not provide any education for them, they will have nothing to show for the time that they stay in prisons except for making friends with other criminals. If we do not focus on those things, once they get out they will be more likely to commit another crime, which can cause a serious problem for the whole society.
While there are many arguments from supporters for why long term confinement is expectable punishment for the inmates in prison, most popular reason is that it allows prisoner to reflect back on their crime and their victim, which in turn is supposed to aid in the rehabilitation process. But multiple studies and long term data collected across the country have proven that it’s simply not true. Based on information collected by the state of Connecticut (Tsui. 2), inmates who spend time in solitary confinement during their prison sentence were 92% more likely to be rearrested within three years compared to 66% of inmate who were not subjected to such treatment, while information from Texas shows that inmates who were housed in isolation units
The idea of sentencing a criminal for a period of time in a prison isn't working, so prisons should focus more on changing their rehabilitation programs. Life in prison should be like the outside world as much as possible, given the fact of imprisonment. Prisoners would be less prepared if the prison environment is artificial and abnormal compared to the outside world they will have to encounter later on. A prisoner also needs to keep family ties. Research in
The way the criminal justice system should handle crimes has always been a debated subject. For over the last forty years, ever since the war on drugs, there are more policies made to be “tough on crime”. From then, correctional systems have grown and as people are doing more crimes, there are plenty of punishments for them. In the mid 1970’s, rehabilitation was the main concern for the criminal justice system. It was common that when someone was convicted of a crime, they would be sentenced to prison but there would also be diagnosed treatments to help them as well. Most likely, they would have committed a crime due to psychological problems. When they receive treatment in prison, they can be healed and would not go back to their wrong lifestyle they had lived before. As years have gone by, people thought that it was better to take a more punitive stance in the criminal justice system. As a result of the turnaround of this more punitive criminal justice system, the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. The U.S. has a higher percentage of the
In this society it is easy to dismiss people as crazy, lazy, or violent without knowing a person’s full background. We all come from different walks of the life and we have a tendency to turn a blind eye to that fact. I look at our prison system and see an array of people incarcerated for many different reasons. The background and upbringing of a person plays a vital role in the type of person someone is going be when they grow up. A person who grew up in a home of violence will have to make a decision about their future. The things seen as a child will either cause a person to break mentally or they will have the determination to do better for their family and themselves. In some cases, a person will have to seek help in order to obtain
Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation's jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the U.S., totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults (Vallas and Detrich 4). To me, that is completely ludicrous and harrowing to have that many human beings in jail. I sense that most of the people in their either need counseling, rehab, or a better education because the probability of them being in their is due to their past of being raised in an unsupportive environment with neglectful and/or abusive families. There is a crisis in our nation of rising mental illnesses, like our current opioid addiction happening in the US. We are managing with people who have co-occurring disorders that can lead them to unlawful actions, addiction and mental illness. Those individuals usually get sent to the jail system and don’t get the proper attention they need. Changing the jail system by implanting a stronger educational system that works on improving their behavior, giving them the resources they need, and skills can help build a successful citizen. To support my belief, a study published by RAND Corporation found that inmates who participated in correctional education programs had a 43% lowers odd of recidivism than inmates who did not, a 5% decrease on tax dollars spent per student, and inmates who participated in the study were likely to obtain employment after being released than those who did
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
Prisons provide criminal offenders with a great opportunity to mend their minds and behaviors. Criminals in prison may receive some basic educations and labor reforms, which have a positive impact on their ideology. For example, when offenders are exposed to laws and regulations, they may realize significance and meaning of laws, and have an impressive introspection to their criminal behaviors.
Moreover providing inmates with education while they are in jail is a great idea, yet it should be taken into account that not all prisoners should be able to have the privilege. Some of the exception would include prisoners who have committed major crimes like rape,or murder. According to the Washington State Institute of Public Policy in their article “College Behind Bars: Keeping an idea alive.” has set some standards on who would be able to have this privilege by stating “The government is encouraging prisons to focus their programs on inmates within five years of release.” The idea is to focus correctional education on inmates who will be released within a couple of years with the purpose of creating knowledgeable people who would be less likely to re-commit a crime, and creating a safe environment for our society.Along with this inmates will be expected to be on their best behavior while in class and any misbehavior would be an automatically disqualification for that inmate and he or she would no longer be able to receive this correctional education that is being offered to them. In the article “Prison education is a smart investment, reduces crime.” by Taylor Loretta, Loretta states “Most students who enroll in our program begin to see themselves as college student capable of something better for themselves.” With this being said it is obvious proof that
“In 2007, one percent of American adults were in prison, which is by far the highest incarceration rate in the world.”( Trachtenberg, B., 2009). Why? Trachtenberg believes it’s because prisons do not rehabilitate people. A violent criminal is sent to prison because he is a threat to society. He is supposed to serve a lengthy term so that he will learn his lesson and become a productive member of society. During his time there he is supposed to learn to appreciate work by cooking, doing laundry, or some other prison job. While he is there he can receive his GED so that he can get a job when he gets out. This plan has good intentions but it has been proven to be ineffective.
This is the case in almost every prison; prisoners join gangs and resort to violence for protection. Without teaching prisoners how to live a moral and ethical lifestyle, all they learn from prison is how to cheat, lie, manipulate and steal. When their sentence comes to an end and they are released back into society, they often find themselves jobless and homeless because most employers refuse to hire someone with a criminal record. Without a job, they resort to the only thing they know how to do, crime. Do we really want to be releasing these people back into society? Of course not. We need to invest in rehabilitation and correction for criminals if we want to keep our society safe. Incarceration alone only keeps the criminal away from society for the duration of their sentence, and without rehabilitation, they are bound to repeat their past mistakes.