American Justice System Punishment vs. Rehabilitation

American Justice System
Punishment vs. Rehabilitation
Melinda Colon
Kaplan University

CJ101-12AU

William Patterson

January 17, 2010

Justice 2
The United States correctional system uses both punishment and rehabilitation when dealing with offenders. There are many ways that the justice system handles these punishments such as incarceration, probation, and sometimes death. However, punishment does not seem to work. It seems that the only way to effectively handle criminals is with successful rehabilitation.
Punishment in the United States goes way back to the beginning of time, as early as the time before Christ when thieves and murderers were crucified for their crimes. As times passed, we eventually developed better and less cruel ways of punishing offenders. Some of these included jails and prisons, monitoring criminals through probation, and less serious punishments like community service. However, we still put the more severe criminals to death, just a little more humanely.
The biggest form of punishment seems to be incarceration. This is obvious by the number of people currently incarcerated and the overcrowding problems that jails have today. It seems even the most minor, insignificant crimes are being punished by jail time. These crimes include driving on a suspended license, petit theft, and public nuisance. In December of 2009 the Bureau of Justice put out its latest statistics on the current inmate population. There were 2,304,115 people incarcerated in the United States as of December 2008 (Bulletin, 2009, p.8).
Another form of punishment used today is conditional releases. In 2008 there were 505,168 criminals on probation or under supervision. Total conditional releases include releases to probation, parole and supervised mandatory releases (Bulletin, 2009, p.4).

Justice 3
Although incarceration and probation seems to be the primary forms of punishment in the United States, we do still use death as a form of punishment. In 2008, there were 3,215 inmates currently on death row in the United States. California is currently the leading state with 690 inmates on death row, followed by Florida with 403 in 2009.
Punishment is not the only way that we currently deal with criminals. Rehabilitation is another form of justice used, although it is not used as much as it should be. It would seem that some believe incarceration is a form of rehabilitation, when in fact it only becomes a revolving door in which many are no longer afraid of.
There are many forms of rehabilitation. Drug treatment programs, mental institutions, and community service are just a few. Drug treatment programs are an excellent form of rehabilitation. In 2006 there were 265,800 drug related crimes in the United States and 277,900 property crimes which include theft. By helping these offenders to get off drugs, we reduce, if not completely eradicate, the number of drug related crimes and drug related thefts.
I feel the best way to handle criminals is by rehabilitation and not punishment. Not all criminals can be rehabilitated and for these criminals we have punishment such as prison, death, or probation, however, minor crimes should not be punished. Many crimes can be prevented. Let’s take the thousands of drug addicts for example. If we take them off drugs, put them in a rehab, and show them how to live a life clean of drugs, there would be no reason for them to steal to support their habit. This not only reduces the rate of drug related crimes, but reduces the rate of crimes against people. Even violent crimes are committed by criminals on drugs, who are not in a sober state of mind, and with rehabilitation; we can prevent these as well.

Justice 4
Our justice system seems to believe very strongly in taking criminals off the street. However, this is only a temporary solution. If we lock a person up for dealing drugs, we only make matters worse. Most prisoners continue this same behavior even in jail. They bring the drugs in, distribute them to other prisoners, and by the time these other prisoners get out, they too are now drug addicts. A jail is nothing more than a holding facility and a place for criminals to meet other criminals and plot their next crime. If we are going to punish criminals, then we need to also rehabilitate them. The goal of our justice system should be to deter crime not just punish it.
Punishment of crime is not a deterrent. Let’s take the person who is spending a year in jail for driving on a suspended license. He does his year and he gets out, but he still has no license. In order to get his license back he needs a job. His options are to get a job and drive without a license again to get to that job, or rob, steal, and sell drugs to survive because he has no license to get to a work. Now take this same criminal and give him a hardship license free of charge for 60 days, this way he can get to work and get the money he needs to pay for his regular license, now he is no longer breaking the law. If we have to lock him up because he just doesn’t do what he has to do, then we make him work while in jail, and take his money to pay for his license fees, this way when he is released, he does not have to worry about getting arrested again for the same thing.
These are just a few ways that rehabilitation works versus punishment. We should be helping society become free of violence by giving them the resources needed to do so. You may not be able to rehabilitate a murderer or rapist, but at least half of these other crimes can be

Justice 5 prevented if we just focus more on the problems and causes of crimes rather than just punishing the crime and waiting for the offender to do it again.

Justice 6

References

U.S. Department of Justice. (2009). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, DC:U.S. Government Printing Office.

Death Penalty Information. (2009). Death Row Inmates. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year Schmalleger, Frank. (2007). Criminal Justice Today. Prentice Hall

References: U.S. Department of Justice. (2009). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, DC:U.S. Government Printing Office. Death Penalty Information. (2009). Death Row Inmates. Retrieved January 14, 2009 from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-inmates-state-and-size-death-row-year Schmalleger, Frank. (2007). Criminal Justice Today. Prentice Hall