To Incarcerate or Rehabilitate: Does Anything Really Work - Report Example

To Incarcerate or Rehabilitate: Does Anything Really Work? Ever heard of a prison where every inmate get down and do the “Jailhouse Rock” like what Elvis Presley did in his movie? Like what most movies depict, prisons appear to be cold, dark and uninviting places where people are put behind bars. Just the thought of being “locked up” for one year in those places would not just summon feelings of depression and uselessness, it literally magnify the thought of how prisoners become a liability to our society. Thus, it is safe to assume that prisons today have represented the failure of the criminal justice process in achieving changes in human attitudes and behavior that would reform them to become productive and self-actualized individuals. During the recent years, crime policies in US states and on the national level have focused on incarceration: longer sentences, “mandatory minimum sentencing,” the reduction of time off for good behavior, and the abolition of parole. As much as these policies are expected to reduce the crime rate by keeping possible recidivists off the streets, these methods are also supposedly effective enough to deter prisoners from offending again. The extent to which these policies succeed at achieving their goals is a subject of relentless debates. But even assuming they do, they create another set of policy hitches: the problem of ballooning prison populations, rampant overcrowding, the ethics of obtaining private prisons and the problem of released prisoners, who for their sake as well as societys must be reintegrated into the community (Lin, 2000, p. 4). No doubt that the U.S. prison system transformed into gargantuan industry, expanding from 500,000 prisoners in 1978 to nearly 2 million in 2001. The U.S. incarceration rate leads the world. With less than 5 percent of the worlds population, the United States holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The yearly cost of operating U.S. prisons and jails is estimated at $40 billion and constitutes the nations largest, costliest program in human services (Marciniak, 2002, p. 10). Taking into account its generally long sentences, and its massive increase in prison population (from 200,000 in 1970, to 800,000 in 1990, to 1.7 million in 1997, to 2 million in 2001), the increase of prisoner population is quite alarming. Why should Americans be concerned about the overcrowding in prisons? Just take this case in Venezuela, which has some of the worst prison crowding problems in the world. Its thirty-three prisons, built to house 15,000 inmates, now hold more than 24,000. In 1994, 274 inmates were killed by other inmates in Venezuelan jails. The system largely ignores all minimum standards of hygiene, medical care, and security. According to Joan Mariner of the Human Rights Watch in New York, “every aspect of the system is overloaded and not functioning (Times, 1998, p. A30). According to the Human Rights Watch, violence may be a factor in many prison deaths, but the most common causes of death are the spread of diseases and the subsequent lack of medical care that are promulgated by prison crowding. As reported by some cases, inmates acquire HIV/AIDS as a result of sharing dirty needles or having sexual contact with other inmates; in other cases, inmates enter prison with the disease. In 1995, it was estimated that over 27,000 inmates in the U.S. prison system were infected with HIV or AIDS (Human Rights Watch Website, 1995). Indeed, the U.S. is faced with the need to spend in extensive building programs to relieve prison crowding and court decisions have forced prison administrators to deal with poor conditions related to crowding. It is quite depressing that the only two goals of sentencing that U.S. prisons seem to achieve are the ones that admit to failure: retribution and incapacitation. The more optimistic goals of rehabilitation and deterrence have not been achieved even in the most progressive, humane, and costly prison systems, in the United States or elsewhere.1 One of the more feasible options to alleviate the ballooning prison population would be appropriate rehabilitation programs for prisoners. In fact, advances have occurred in many countries in the form of improved prison conditions and an increase in the different kinds of rehabilitation programs available to prevent the alarming increase and the costs of maintaining prisoners. For instance, German prisons are known for their extensive use of rehabilitation programs. In a study of five German prisons, it was determined that at least three features strongly support the rehabilitative philosophy: (1) unique environmental conditions, (2) extensive work and training opportunities, and (3) community integration programs (Dammer, 1996). Prisons in Germany look less like secure correctional institutions and more like factories or hospitals. The belief is that keeping the physical appearance more like that of a factory and creating more “normal” living conditions will promulgate rehabilitation. Even in China, upon the passing by the National People’s Congress of the new Prison Law of 1994, the Chinese, at least on paper, have made some significant changes to their correctional system. These include more centralization of administration, more accountability to other aspects of the justice system, more scientifically based approaches to rehabilitation, and more sensitivity to prisoners’ rights (Anderson, 1996). In the U.S., nearly all states have established intermediate sanctions for certain types of offenses. Some of these alternatives are aimed at the offender: substance abuse treatment programs, sexual offender rehabilitation programs, work-release programs, and home surveillance. Other statutory alternatives, such as community service programs, day fines, and restitution centers, focus on restoring the community or the victim (Posner, 1998, p. 1947). There is little doubt that many offender rehabilitation programs have failed to meet the objective of reducing recidivism. A study of prison rehabilitation published by Robert Martinson in Public Interest in 1974 became known as the "nothing works" report; many policy and decision-makers have been influenced by Martinsons work. Martinson concluded that with few and isolated exceptions the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism (Murray, n.d.). During the 1970s, there are prison work-release programs that established considerably, but enthusiasm for them has dimmed in recent years. Turner and Petersilla (1996) recounted that: Part of the reason why work release programming has declined pertains to funding. Many work release programs begun in the 1970s were paid for by the federal government, using funds from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). When the federal funds dried up, many of the programs were discontinued. And as the rehabilitation ideal—of which work release was very much a part—started to fade, the public embraced imprisonment as the only sure way to forestall crime. Programs that focused on rehabilitation, job training, and transitional services seemed hopelessly out of touch with a public mood that had turned punitive. Through the years, many involved in offender rehabilitation have continued to try to significantly reduce recidivism with methods that have repeatedly failed while ignoring the methods that actually work. In California, the fundamental difference between the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system since its inception has been that rehabilitation was considered to be the primary goal for youth offenders. Shifting public sentiments in the past two decades towards a tough on crime stance have led to changes in the treatment of juvenile offenders. The mission of CYA as it now stands is to protect the public from criminal activity. Before anything can change, the State and the public need to re-commit themselves to the rehabilitation of our youth (Center on Juvenile Crime and Justice Website). In Florida, a new program called Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE) controls the 51 state prison industries. According to the publicly reported financial records of the Corporation for 1998, Florida had saved a lot of money from this rehabilitation program, by using only $900,000 of the available $4.2 million dollars for program support. This amount was paid for PRIDE’s job training and post-release job placement. These educational and the vocational rehabilitation process have been effectively used to switch the financial value of the prisoners and be placed onto potential social values the soon to be ex-prisoners will offer their communities (Prisonlife Website, 2001). Heated debates continue to plague the issue about the efficacy of general prison rehabilitation programs. Detractors often lambaste that rehabilitation programs never worked, that “these people just dont know the value of an honest job.” Advocates claim that rehabilitation programs was never given a chance—there was too little funding in the first place, and with the explosive growth of the prison population since 1980 and the prevailing “get tough” attitude toward convicts, it is political suicide for a governor or legislator to mention upgrading rehab in the prisons. Even though Martinsons declaration provided a much-needed rationale for legislators and correctional administrators who were intent on cutting rehabilitation programs; Martinson, himself, withdrew his earlier conclusion five years later. He deemed that nothing works, and conceded that some prison rehabilitation programs do work, as measured by a reduction in recidivism, if a well-designed program is tailored to specific populations and there is adequate follow-up support after the offender is released. In other words, if we merely correlate the overall recidivism rate with the presence of any kind of rehab program in the prisons, rehabilitation causes no reduction in the overall recidivism rate; but if we look at the outcomes of specific programs for specific subgroups of inmates—for instance, educational programs for motivated prisoners or job training for unskilled youthful offenders—participation in rehab programs has a very positive effect on recidivism rates for these subpopulations (Kupers, 1999, p. 237-238). Of course, some hardcore criminals are uninterested in changing their ways, so their participation in rehabilitation programs has no effect on their recidivism rate. Many other prisoners want very much to “go straight” and they grab every opportunity available to improve their chances. Other researchers have found that with juvenile delinquents, the sooner the problem behavior is treated the better the result, and the more time counselors spend with the juvenile offender the more progress is made. By documenting what corrections programs can accomplish, we can move toward integrating rehabilitation programs into a more balanced corrections strategy, where lower risk inmates are transitioned successfully into the community, where they can move on with their lives and become productive citizens. And through adopting more realistic outcome measures for these programs, we may help to bridge the wide gap between the public’s expectations for the justice system and what most practitioners recognize as the system’s actual capacity to control crime. Works Cited Anderson, A. F..A Perspective on China’s New Prison Law. International Criminal Justice Review, 6, (1996). Center on Juvenile Crime and Justice Website (CJCJ). Reforming the Juvenile Justice System. 19 March 2006 http://www.cjcj.org/jjic/reforming.php Dammer, H. R. Rehabilitation in German Prisons. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 24.1–2), (1996): 1–10 Human Rights Watch Website. Insufficient Provision of Specialized Facilities for Seriously Ill Prisoners, (1999). 19 March 2006 http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1003/15.htm Kupers, T. A. Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis behind Bars and What We Must Do about It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. Lin, A. C. Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Marciniak, E. Standing Room Only: What to Do about Prison Overcrowding. Commonweal, 129, (25 January 2002): 10. Murray, Iain. American Experience of Rehabilitating Prisoners. 19 March 2006 http://www.petercoad.co.uk/047.htm Posner, R. A. Developments in the Law: Alternatives to Incarceration. Harvard Law Review, 111.7, (1998): 1863-1990. Prisonlife Website. Prison Industry vs. Prisoner Rehabilitation in Florida.19 March 2006 http://www.prisonerlife.com/articles/articleID=17.cfm The Times. Even Guards Stay Out of This Prison, (25 Dec.1998): A30. Turner, Susan and Petersilia, Joan. Work Release in Washington: Effects on Recidivism and Corrections Costs, Prison Journal, 76, (June, 1996). Read More