Punishment vs. Rehabilitation within the criminal justice system
I. Why did you pick this topic?
If you were bullied in school as a child, then the "best years" of your life may have felt more like an endless, living nightmare. There is no shortage of social predators trying to boost their self-esteem or status at other people 's expense. Now imagine a school of hard knocks where the concentration of bullies is much higher than their victims. That 's what life may be like for many a convict serving time in prison.
How impossible is it to not become hardened and detached under the constant threat of victimization? It 's hard to imagine that reform is part of that equation when one 's very life is at stake. Yet that is one of the impressions that we on the outside have of why criminals are in prisons: so that they will get better. But do they?
In effort to make society appear to function properly, we have to close our eyes to many contradictions. Ironically, many are found within the justice systems. We have all witnessed lawyers so hungry for money and advancement that they will protect criminals from incarceration at the cost of the next innocent victim. Another area of justice to which our eyes are closed are the prisons where convicted criminals do their reparation.
Some main reasons why criminals are sent to prison are:
To separate a bully from his next victim — whether it be a robber from the jewelry store, a rapist from women, or a drug dealer from his addicted customers, etc.
As punishment and revenge for the crimes a bully has already committed against his victims.
To reform or correct the behavior and reintegrate a bully back into our respectable society.
The first reason — to separate a criminal from his/her next victim — is the proper use of social seperation for keeping the public safe from further harm. The second, using imprisonment as a form of punishment and revenge is a misguided use of justice, because revenge turns the punisher into the bully possibly even the murderer, if a death sentence is
If you were bullied in school as a child, then the "best years" of your life may have felt more like an endless, living nightmare. There is no shortage of social predators trying to boost their self-esteem or status at other people 's expense. Now imagine a school of hard knocks where the concentration of bullies is much higher than their victims. That 's what life may be like for many a convict serving time in prison.
How impossible is it to not become hardened and detached under the constant threat of victimization? It 's hard to imagine that reform is part of that equation when one 's very life is at stake. Yet that is one of the impressions that we on the outside have of why criminals are in prisons: so that they will get better. But do they?
In effort to make society appear to function properly, we have to close our eyes to many contradictions. Ironically, many are found within the justice systems. We have all witnessed lawyers so hungry for money and advancement that they will protect criminals from incarceration at the cost of the next innocent victim. Another area of justice to which our eyes are closed are the prisons where convicted criminals do their reparation.
Some main reasons why criminals are sent to prison are:
To separate a bully from his next victim — whether it be a robber from the jewelry store, a rapist from women, or a drug dealer from his addicted customers, etc.
As punishment and revenge for the crimes a bully has already committed against his victims.
To reform or correct the behavior and reintegrate a bully back into our respectable society.
The first reason — to separate a criminal from his/her next victim — is the proper use of social seperation for keeping the public safe from further harm. The second, using imprisonment as a form of punishment and revenge is a misguided use of justice, because revenge turns the punisher into the bully possibly even the murderer, if a death sentence is
Cited: Cadigan, Brian. "Correcting Our Flawed Criminal Justice System, One Private Prison at a Time." The Bottom Line UCSB. N.p., 11 May 2011. Web. 09 May 2013. Dutta, Sunil. "How to Fix America 's Broken Criminal Justice System." The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Dec. 2010. Web. 07 May 2013. Vedantam, Shankar. "When Crime Pays: Prison Can Teach Some To Be Better Criminals." NPR. NPR, 01 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 May 2013.