Prison Reform

The United States has one of the highest rates of inmates globally. The majority of the inmate’s ages vary from 31- 40 (bop.gov). These are the ages where people are productive and becoming the most effective part of the economy. The inmates are being held in prison and are a part of the violence and the unpredicted behaviors that is happening inside the prisons. Prisons are supposed to be places that change and develop people to the better. Instead it is a place deprived of humanity and consciousness, which leads to recidivism and behavioral violence. Prison reform is needed because it would help increase economic growth, reduce the number of prisons needed, and help allocate taxpayer’s money to education and healthcare. Above all, they are
supposed to eradicate the motives that made them do the crime initially. Prisons have always been violent places. Moreover, the substandard life-quality offered in prisons impacts the ability of the inmates to rehabilitate. Inmates in prison do not seem to be rehabilitating to society. Recidivism rates are high, and that is due to ineffectiveness of the reforming system. Inmates should be provided with a decent life-style inside prisons. This could work as a motivation for them. Providing inmates with a good life-style could be a good example of the life-style they can get if they did not resort to crime to fulfill their needs. Statistics show that “An estimated two-thirds (68 percent) of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of release from prison, and three-quarters (77 percent) were arrested within five years” (bjs.gov). Those rates are high, and they will not decrease unless the reform system is fixed. These numbers can decrease if a sufficient amount of effort is spent in regards of fixing the prison-reform programs. In addition, if the inmates rehabilitated and got motivated to have a decent life they will seek jobs or maybe initiate their own businesses and this can also benefit the United States economy. Inmates go to prison for many reasons; one of them is the behavioral instability in their life, which makes them tend to perpetrate criminal acts.
The violent environment presented against the inmates in prison is not helping them to develop themselves. The main idea of prison is to ameliorate inmates and provide them with motives that makes them not to commit crime again. This violence tends to add more instability into the inmates behaviors. For this reason inmates are not reforming the way they are supposed to. Statistics show that “About 52% of substantiated incidents of sexual victimization in 2011 involved only inmates, while 48% of substantiated incidents involved staff with inmates.” (bjs.gov). The statistics of the Bureau Justice Department presents a good example of the instability in the inmate’s life-quality inside the prison. Almost half of the inmates are exposed to behavioral violence. In order for inmates to start rehabilitating, the violence inside prisons should be controlled, so that inmates could have times for themselves while doing their rehabilitation programs without any distress. Some might say that inmates are in prison because they caused violence and insecurity to the society and they should be offered the same thing in prisons. Despite all of that, the inmates are still human-beings and their actions occurred due to their instability and they can be helped in prison so they would not cause this
again. Prisons should have a rehabilitating program for inmates with mental disorder. Inmates with mental disorder require a professional healthcare. The Bureau of Justice statistics shows that 61% inmates in a state prison had a mental problem and 44% in local jail are considered having a mental disorder as well (bjs.gov). The statistics shows that almost half of the inmates are mentally ill, for this reason they can not be left untreated, or else they would remain the same. Treating the mentally ill with proper techniques could accomplish the safety that the society seeks and protecting it from unpredicted attacks. One of the reasons inmates go to prison is being raised in an unstable environment. People are affected by their surroundings. Uneducated people tend to do more crime than an ordinary person. According to Bureau of Justice Department “68% of State prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma” (bjs.gov). Educational courses must be included in prison programs, as studies from the Econometrics Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley showed in a research “We find that schooling significantly reduces the probability of incarceration.” (Lochner and Moretti). Educated people tend to seek self-development, which keeps them away from committing crimes. Lack of education could also lead to income instability; sometimes it is hard to find a decent job without having a degree. Inmates tend to steal when they are financially unstable. The human nature has instinct of survival built in it, so if inmates had a shortage in their financial needs, naturally they will gravitate to steal.There are some people who actually go to jail in purpose just to get health insurance. As stated in FOX31 Denver “Whitney`s 83-year-old father, Ken, says his son's been banned from nearly every local motel and residential treatment facility. He says, sadly, jail health care has been a good option. His son must take his mental health medications and guards kept him from hurting himself” (kdvr.com). That is a huge amount of tax money wasted. Also the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows that 4.3% of the inmates are accused of burglary or larceny (bop.gov). The number of inmates in prison could decrease if they rehabilitated. On the occasion that inmates had a job that satisfies them financially they would not recur to burglary or even commit a crime on purpose to have health insurance. The inmate’s chances of going to prison could be also affected by a bad start in childhood.
A bad start in childhood could be something like; having parents who are drug addicts or become influenced by friends who do drugs. Drug addicts tend to use drugs as a relief from the hardships they face in life; those hardships could also be related to unstable financial status which could also lead to the lack of awareness and education. For that reason, prisons should work more on providing drug rehab programs. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons; 46.6% of inmates offenses are due to drug offenses (bop.gov). The statistics show the almost half of the inmates are facing offenses because of drugs. If those inmates were rehabilitated— a sufficient amount of the people in prison could be gone. In addition, having a society free of drug use could be a significant breakthrough. A drug-free society could be more productive and also could find a better way for spending their
many. As an example, if an inmate went out of prison without being rehabilitated he would not hesitate to commit another crime, and the inmate would go back and forth to prison. Taking an extra effort in providing inmates with a decent education and healthy environment will benefit the United States Economy and society in the long term. Inmates are still considered citizens; they contribute in building the economy. The government should spare and extra tax money into the reform programs for inmates. Because it would benefit the whole society and provide a safe and better environment for everyone. Some people would say: why should the government fund this? And others would not like the idea of their tax money going for prisoners; in addition, they would say that this would require a lot of attention and effort from the guards and prison operators. On the other hand this would help the society and the prison operators in the long-term due to the decreased number of inmates inside prisons. This country treats everyone equally and inmates should not be treated less than anyone else.