Is prison effective as rehabilitation for wrong-doers in the US? Shawshank’s Redemption, an all-time best movie produced in 1994 starred and led by actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. A story about two imprisoned men’s experience with the corrupted prison institution through their way of self-redemption. There is a line, which was well read by Morgan Freeman, I am particularly fond of. Here I quote ‘These walls are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the …show more content…
A finding from a study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that 67.8 percent of ex-convicts were rearrested. Two-thirds of them spent their time in prison waiting for the release, only to go back into that dirty old cell again. Why don’t they try to get a real job, earn their own living and cherish the second chance we grant them. Let’s step down from the moral high ground for a second. Often released prisoners lack the skills and knowledge to keep up with the pace of society. Competence obsoletes over time; in order to help rehabilitate inmates, 350 college degree programs were once provided in prisons all over the State. However, by 2005, the number has shrunk down to 12 programs in 12 prisons. Prison jobs and educational training have a waiting list of more than 10,000 people. Prisoners are unable to regain their life by better equipping themselves in time of custody due to the fact that the government fails to deliver education to inmates. This is what ‘institutionalization’ from Shawshank’s Redemption is about. After all the years behind bars, they have gradually become more dependent on the walls around them and rather stay in prison because they know the world and their lives are not the same as the ones the time they were jailed. In other words, they are hopeless to re-enter our society. Where else can they be, if not the prison? What else can they do, if not …show more content…
Inmates are constantly violated by cellmates and prison guards, both physically and sexually. Violence is often associated with prison gangs and interpersonal conflict. Prison guards are bribable and all kinds of contrabands including weapon, drug, liquor, tobacco and cell phone can be found in inmates’ hands. Crime within the fence is rampant, only counting those with violent act, 5.8 million reports were made in 2014. If the prison is really what it claims to be, shouldn’t prisoners be serving their time with regret and learning to be obedient? On the contrary, they continue to misbehave as the way that had them chained up. Rehabilitating from crime is similar to recovering from drug abuse, the most effective way to cut off from further engagement is to keep anything related out of reach. Yet, the prison has done the opposite, no prisoner can reform under such circumstance. Prison is supposed to put an end to criminal activities but it turns out to be the extension; crime keeps happening in and out of the prison and criminals stay as
It was additional shocking to learn the there is little or no rehabilitative service or training offered to the prisoners, and with the privatization of the prison system has led to longer sentencing time. A man released from prison will have
They start a long winding road even outside of prison to get their lives back on track and need their family and community to help. As this topic comes up more and more, I hope that issues such as this come to light so that community can heal and those exonerated can become productive members of society again, as they deserve to
The United States needs a better approach to how they hand rehabilitation of prisoners young and old. One of the questions is “can everyone be rehabilitated?” Another question is “should everyone be?” And finally “how should they be?” These are all important questions when it comes to the subject of
However, the penalty stands to be only temporary. Studies have shown that only seventy-one percent of those released from prison are convicted of a serious crime within only three years after their releasement ( ). Is prison housing the criminals or teaching them? A correctional facility is built to correct and rehabilitate, however prison systems in America appear to be only a short stop before the production of the criminals grand plan. The majority of those who are sentenced to prison have a high rate of returning due to their difficulty in gaining a position with a self-sustaining wage and a lack knowledge on a life without crime.
Thesis: It is very important for the sake of Americans tax dollars that we change the way that prisons are run and increase the productivity of inmates so when they are released from jail they are ready to be a productive member in society and have the confidence to achieve new goals. Introduction: Day after day, millions of inmates sit in jail doing nothing productive with their lives. We are paying to house inmates that may not even have a good reason to be there. For example, drug offenders are being kept with murderers and other violent offenders.
In order to do this they need to make new centers to help prisoners inside better themselves. In Alabama prisons may soon shut down 14 of its prisons for overcrowding, neglect, and violence in the state’s correction systems. In the prison St. Clair Holman in Alabama the prison system makes prisoners act different. There is no safety, security or supervision. “We have people being killed, sexually assaulted, raped, stabbed on daily basis at St. Clair, Holman, and multiple facilities; it’s a systemwide problem,” said Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which represents Alabama prisoner.”
The United States rehabilitation system is one of the only strong and high functioning aspects of the correctional system. The United States has its flaws when it comes to criminal correction but the rehabilitation is where it needs to be. Often times if there is a case the requires some sort of rehab outside of the country then that case is sent into the United States. There is hope for the United States correctional system, however, there is a lot of flaws and holes that need to be patched up. All in all the United States correctional system is at a stage where there is a great deal of work that needs to be put into it to get the maximum results
The punishment is that they are with us” (Paragraph 2). Instead, prisons focus on rehabilitation. Most citizens understand that in order to have long term effects, it take long processes that take a while to get used to. “The country’s well-education population [appreciate] that almost all prisoners will return to society. They understand [...] that the more the penal system can do within the small window of opportunity during a prisoner’s incarceration, the better it will be in the long run” (Paragraph 15).
The prison system itself is corrupted and unfair to those individuals in it. Even though there are reform programs within the prisons, many prisoners return to prison due to inconsistent follow ups and the absence of these programs outside of prison. This creates high recidivism rates because they have a place to sleep and guaranteed meals and outside of prison it’s harder from them to have access to all of that. Elliot Currie states, “As we have crammed more and more offenders into prison, we have simultaneously retreated from the already minimal commitment to help them reenter productive society.” When the Eastern State Penitentiary was first opened in 1829, its main focus was to rehabilitate prisoners so they could reenter society (Eastern State Penitentiary).
Prisons were created to keep out the bad and abnormal that were disturbing society, but over time urbanization and capitalism advanced prisons into working factories. Prisons are a way for people to reflect on the decisions that they have made. In Chapter 5, Redemption and Hope, Reamer reflects of the different ways prisoner’s coup with being released on parole. Surprisingly, there are many inmates that get released and commit another crime and are sent right back in because they violate their probation. However, there are the lucky ones who make it out and stay out.
Those who find themselves sentenced to time in a penitentiary, jail, or prison are at risk of either being broken or strengthened by the time they spend behind bars. There is a great debate of whether or not the prison system in the United States is positive or negative. The following will briefly highlight the positives, negatives, and possible alternatives for our nation's prison system. First, there is a long list of negatives that the prison system in America brings. The prison system is filled with crime, hate, and negativity almost as much as the free world is.
A. Life in prison is not the path any average person wanders down, or perhaps even plan for. Also, it is safe to assume that any person who has been to prison would let the outsiders know that is not fun, nor is it a life anyone devotes to living. In Michael G. Santos’s book, Inside: Life Behind Bars in America, Santos explains what living behind bars in America is like. Unlike most of the population in prison for violent offenses, Santos was in prison for the opposite reasons: a major drug bust. Santos was also sentenced to federal prison, instead of a state/local prison, for forty-five years which stemmed from a high-profile cocaine bust that occurred in Miami, Florida.
In the visual text Shawshank Redemption director, Frank Darabont, uncovers the impact of institutionalization on prisoners showing that in prisons inmates lose all self-reliance and fall into a monotonous routine forgetting the independence needed to survive in the outside world. There is an emphasis on this idea in the scene of Brooks’ demise. Darabont focuses on the techniques; lighting of Brooks’ face in the library, the slow dolly to his face in the bus, as well as acting, dialogue and a low angle shot to show the idea of institutionalization. Together they all show the impact institutionalization had on Brooks’. Brooks’ demise scene opens with a mid tracking shot of Brooks in the library being lit by light coming through the window freeing his pet crow, Jake.
Angela Davis in her book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, argues for the overall abolishment of prisons. Amongst the significant claims that support Davis’ argument for abolition, the inadequacy of prison reforms stands out as the most compelling. Reform movements truthfully only seek to slightly improve prison conditions, however, reform protocols are eventually placed unevenly between women and men. Additionally, while some feminist women considered the crusade to implement separate prisons for women and men as progressive, this reform movement proved faulty as female convicts increasingly became sexually assaulted. Following the theme of ineffectiveness, the reform movement that advocated for a female approach to punishment only succeeded in strengthening
However, crimes are committed whilst in prison, such as drugs and assaults. Some critics say the ‘three strikes and you are out’ law where repeat offenders get a longer sentence are wrong, as the third strike could be a lesser crime such as public disorder. Nevertheless, if just incapacitation and no rehabilitation some critics say will be costlier to society as they will go out and reoffend and, they are not employed and pay taxes. Rehabilitation is also a punishment which should improve the offender's behaviour and stop them committing crimes. Advocates of rehabilitation state prison does not work; however, critics of rehabilitation state prison does work as the criminal cannot commit a crime against the public while incarcerated (Cavadino, 2007 p 36/56).