American Prisons: Role in Rehabilitation and the Potential for Reform
Prison reform is a significant issue for many Americans. The prison population is expanding at a phenomenal rate, often beyond the capacity of the existing system to accommodate the swelling ranks of the incarcerated. The focus for many is increasingly on rehabilitation as a means to reduce recidivism and consequently reduce the number of individuals who must be placed in prisons every year. In the early 1990s, the number of people jailed in the United States topped one million (Maxwell 34). By 2000, that number had doubled, and by 2003 more than 2.2 million people were living their lives in prisons (Sullivan 56; Coy 992). The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which the role of the prison as rehabilitator is at all effective. Additionally, I will examine whether or not reforms are being made that increase the rehabilitative capacity of American prisons. In the end, it is my conclusion that the American prison system is not functionally capable of significant prisoner rehabilitation and that contemporary reform measures are increasingly blurring the Constitutional line that separates Church and State. At primary issue is the recognition that of the number of convicts released every year, 55% will commit an
In short, then, we see that the United States has a substantial history of faith in rehabilitation dating all the way back to the early 19thcentury. The belief that criminal rehabilitation is possible and that the prisons are the means to accomplish it has been ingrained in the public consciousness for two hundred years. But it is also apparent that the American prison system is not designed to effectively affect rehabilitative change in inmates. Political views aside, few would argue that the prison system in the country is functional. While some question the wisdom of trying to incorporate rehabilitation into prisons that should be used to incapacitate criminals, reforms have repeatedly been pushed that would improve the ability of prisons to re-socialize and rehabilitate criminals. However, even these measures and reforms are fraught with problems and complications. It does not appear that there is any immediate reform fix that will transform the U.S. prison system into an institution that is effectively capable of rehabilitating criminals. Of course, such descriptions are more than a little reductive. Nevertheless, they provide a useful starting point for discussion. The rehabilitative impulse is still very much alive in the United States, despite calls by some for increased sentences, the use of the death penalty, and a general lack of services for inmates. For example, faced with the failure of the existing prison system to produce meaningful rehabilitation, some prison officials are suggesting more comprehensive ways that the prison system can be organized in order to decrease the chance of recidivism. Many of these prison officials agree that the first six to nine months of a convicts release are far more crucial to stopping recidivism and achieving rehabilitation than any number of years in a prison cell (Maxwell 34). In other words, the prisons in the United States are not capable as institutions of affecting the kind of rehabilitative change that many Americans would like to see them accomplish. But what these officials suggest is that making significant structural changes to the prisons would not be nearly as important or as effective as eliciting community involvement to reduce recidivism after an inmate has been released. They cite well-run prisons, a personal commitment to change on the part of the convict, and community involvement as key in promoting rehabilitation (Mazxwell 34). Critics might see this as an elaborate passing of responsibility from the prison system to the public, but I disagree. The prisons in the United States were never originally designed to rehabilitate. Expecting those kinds of results might simply not be feasible from the institution. As a result of this general feeling in the United States that criminal rehabilitation is possible and socially useful (a much debated point), various reform methods have been devised and even implemented in some situations to varying degrees of success. At issue is the fact that prison reform, as it centers around the rehabilitation issue, has become increasingly polarized in the United States. One is either in favor of rehabilitation or in favor of revenge (Lefevere 11). Middle ground is hard to come by, but the march of activism continues fairly steadily. Prison reform measures are devised and implemented throughout the nation as activists strive to create prison institutions that
Some common words found in the essay are:
David Kopel, , Additionally Hamm, United Goddard, Institution Florida, prison system, James Hamm, rehabilitative change, goddard par, prison reform, reduce recidivism, prison population, prison officials, american prisons, american prison, maxwell 34, american prison system, permanent detention centers, changes justice system,
Approximate Word count = 2296
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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