Prison Rehabilitation Issue

Prison Rehabilitation Issue Prison inmates should be rehabilitated in order to reduce recidivism rates. There are over 1.5 million Americans incarcerated at this moment. With many leaving on parole, while others struggle with high re-arrest rates, many question whether prisons should rehabilitate for a substance and crime free re-entry into society. Those for rehabilitation argue that statistics support evidence that programs which educate convicts, allowing them to get G.E.D.’s and participate in college programs work in helping offenders to lead better lives once outside prison walls. These arguments support that through education and drug rehabilitation that an individual enrolled in these programs has a better chance at staying free from incarceration. Non supporters of these educational programs argue that prisons should focus on justice and punishment rather than educate prisoners. Those against also support the ideas that crime will exist anyway, and that these added duties of teaching and rehabilitating are too much for staff to handle. By careful examination studies show that through rehabilitation and education offenders may be kept from returning to prison. The main argument from the proactive side is that overall, treatment is better for addicts, who primarily fill prisons. There are four programs to assist addicts in the recovery process,

therapeutic communities, short term residential treatment, and drug maintenance programs. Each of these programs has been proven to have a high success rate when it comes to the prevention of inmates returning to substance abuse and crime. Drug addiction and substance abuse has been recognized as a mental disorder which requires treatment, treatment that suites the individual and the needs that they may have, by acquiring an education and learning how to lead a drug free life. Through this level of treatment, patients get a grip and learn how to control themselves, allowing them to develop the skills needed to live without the crutch of substance abuse, addiction, and crime. Just as there is a percentage of people which live with cholesterol issues, or diabetes, the inmates learn how to adjust behavior, diet, and if necessary, take medications to further aid in the rehab process. By indoctrinating these positive processes into the inmate’s life, the programs help to establish better routines, and habits. Results seen after these periodic studies show that the more treatment distributed, the better. Statistics show that individuals who remain in these programs longer than 3 months have better outcomes than those who are not exposed to the same environment. Further research shows that those who receive treatment are more likely to obtain and retain a job. The ultimate goal is to provide the individual with a drug free life and a better education upon leaving the institutionalized way of living, but the immediate goal is to reduce substance abuse and drop recidivism rates through rehab programs. Drug treatment programs in prisons have proven that intervention and rehabilitation prevent the return to criminal behavior, primarily when linked to community based treatment upon parole. More successful programs have reduced the re-arrest rate by one fourth, to one half. While treatment; including a therapeutic community setting, and community based after care, reduces the likelihood of re-arrest to fifty seven percent, and reduces the likelihood of returning to drugs by sixty five percent. Drug abuse has a huge impact on the economy, with costs grossing an estimated sixty seven billion per year, all related to crime, medical care, drug treatment, and social welfare programs. Through the further expansion of education and reform through rehabilitation, studies show that these costs can be lowered. There are 5.3 million Americans under some sort of supervised form of correction, with 1.5 million actually incarcerated. There is a great need to understand this, as there are more people in prison at this time than any other period in American history. Studies of statistics as of 2002 reveal that one in one hundred American adults are behind bars, raising the total of people imprisoned in America to 2.3 million total. Statistics like these show that America imprisons more of its citizens than any other country on the planet, further demonstrating that rehab programs are unsuccessful in reducing crime and substance abuse. On that same list is China in second place, and China has four times as many people as America, and is also a communistic country. America’s rate of imprisonment is greater than each country in Europe combined, as was revealed by the same study. These reports also indicated that one in thirty six Hispanic adults are currently imprisoned in the United states, as is every one out of nine African American males, age thirty to forty. The same report also went on to state that one in three black men will be imprisoned in their lifetime, and that a higher percent of the black population is incarcerated in America than in South Africa at the height of the Apartheid. It costs an average of twenty eight thousand eight hundred and seventy six dollars to imprison someone for a year in the United states, and in some states the cost even exceeds the cost of tuition and room and board at a prominent university, such as Brown. In twenty years the average costs in state spending has nearly quintupled to forty nine billion, and there have been no positive results, furthering proof that rehab and education programs do not affect recidivism rates. America imprisons more people than any other place in the world and still the majority of prisons fail to rehabilitate. In fact they do the opposite, as inmates are exploited by state facilities, forced to perform cheap labor, as individuals deal with overcrowding issues, such as aggression, and stress, which leads to substance abuse while incarcerated. Prisons do not stop crime or deal with the criminal mentality, instead, prisons promote perpetual violence, all while states increasingly create more prisons, and spend millions more on the failed rehab programs. Prisons hold key elements which could possibly offer the incarcerated a better future, if the tools given to the individuals are utilized. Education and guidance can be attained through programs that are instated for assistance. It is up to the individual to maintain the routines learned and use the education received to contribute to society and prove that reform has been accomplished. Still the questions remain, should prisons rehabilitate? Or, should they simply focus on locking these people up? Outdated laws fill prisons with low level inmates while training them to be hardened criminals, as recidivism rates rise, and billions of dollars are used towards criminal justice. Many imprisoned return to society, would not it be better to educate these individuals rather than have them conform to an institutionalized way of thinking, only to return to the institutions. The revolving doors are creating perpetual offenders and this system will continue to swell, as long as there are no forms of rehabilitation for those imprisoned.