Chazston Billings
Everest Online University
ENC1102-12
When is the Punishment Over? When Does the Sentence End? Have you thought to yourself, what causes a convicted felon to get out of prison and commit another crime? After being punished by having to serve time in prison, why? In this essay we are going to discuss a reason why. The average person knows people who commit felonies are punished by being forced to spend time in prison. However, convicted felons lose more than this type of freedom as part of their punishment. It is as if the punishment is never over and the sentence never ends. That is what I believe causes most convicted felons to get out of prison and commit another crime. Because recidivism rates are so high, the “debt to society” at the heart of this issue is not with respect to serving a sentence for a particular crime, it is in having not adopted a criminal lifestyle (Latham, 2011). The convicted felon ought to have the obligation of establishing that his interests have become aligned with those of ordinary citizens and contrary to those with a criminal lifestyle. That might be established after ten or twenty years without an arrest for a felony. It is not established by release from prison, in which it should be. Once you commit a felony society treats you as if you’re going to continue living a criminal life style. One can argue what the correct level of continuing debt to society ought to be, but the fact that convicted felons are more likely to commit crimes is unquestionable in the eyes of society (Latham, 2011).
The criminal justice system is dominated by individuals with multiple arrests and multiple convictions. As a variety of criminological research indicates, approximately a third of felony defendants are considered high-risk offenders [ (Burns, 2010) ]. Note that this is not an indictment of all people caught up in the criminal justice system; most eventually break