The Transitional Aid Research Project - Essay Example

In view of the above, policymakers have identified the advantages of providing professional and vocational training to inmates in correctional centers. To implement such training, correctional centers often contract with private industries wherein these inmates can work to develop their skills. Among other issues, one can safely argue that training these inmates would prepare them to easily find jobs in a chosen field because of the hands-on experience they gained in a prison program. This is particularly true given that correctional centers seek to reform the mentality of inmates so that they can easily fit into society after their release.

According to Maguire et al (1988), they can only fit well into society when they have a vocation from which they can earn income to reestablish their lives. Even during the training, they undergo with private firms, the inmates can earn money while in the correctional centers. This helps them fund some extra needs that the penitentiary administration is not obliged to take care of. Secondly, by providing training to inmates in the correctional centers a step to reduce the probability of them returning to commit crimes after they are released.

With training acquired during the period at the correction centers, inmates would have an activity to tie them down when they return to life outside the correctional centers. Hence these activities would deter them from activities whose consequences would take them back to the correctional center.However, some people argue that providing training to inmates in correctional centers proves a source of potential danger to the public. This is because some of this training takes place outside the correctional center premises and gives inmates the opportunity to interact with members of the public while they are still serving their prison terms.

The potential danger is can be seen when one considers the cases of sex offenders or drug addicts. For the case of sex offenders, frequent contact with the outside environment would mean inmates can easily confront their victims again or find more vulnerable people to prey on. As per drug addicts, repeated contact with the outside environment in the course of training means offenders can easily reestablish links to lay hands on drugs. This can be even more dangerous, given that these drugs could now be smuggled into the correctional centers and consequently increase the incidence of in-house crimes.

On the other hand, most of these offenders serving long terms have either killed or incapacitated the lives of innocent individuals. So, sympathizers of such victims hold that these offenders should be caged under conditions that would make their lives miserable (Schmidt & Wiite, 1984). As such, giving them training would be a way to enhance their lives, whereas they might have killed or rendered someone invalid.