Prison System Rehabilitation: Does Current System Require Change?

By YvonneG

I grew up having no knowledge of the prison system. To me, prison was the place to send “bad people” for the sole purpose of keeping them locked away from society. I gave no thought as to how prisoners were treated while in prison, which is a very important consideration given that people are locked away anywhere from months to the rest of their lives.

Then I learned that in addition to keeping prisoners separated from society, prisons were supposed to serve a two-fold purpose: one of correction and rehabilitation. By correction, the goal would be to cause a change of direction within the prisoner that would lead him/her down a path that is minus criminal intentions. By rehabilitation, the goal would be to make the change sufficiently effective as to cause the prisoner to never walk down the criminal path again. Once these goals are achieved, the prisoner would then be allowed to rejoin society and contribute to the system by living independently and in a responsible, law-abiding manner.

Is our prison system working? Are the inmates being reformed and reentering our society as better people? Well, I just read that incarceration is having little to no effect on prisoners. In fact, the practices of most prison systems only succeed in training inmates to be better, more efficient criminals. What’s worse, the prison population only continues to increase as time goes on, not only because of new participants, but also because of repeat offenders.

I heard something on the news the other night that started me to thinking about a way to possibly induce change and rehabilitation in our prison systems more effectively. It was suggested that inmates pay for their meals, and possibly even pay for the beds they sleep in. I thought to myself, “What a novel and simple idea!” Since the goal is to reshape the inmate so that he/she will be able to rejoin society as responsible citizens, why not fashion our prison systems to resemble the outside world?

For instance, there is a work regiment implemented in our prison systems now, but what about putting the prisoners on a 40-hr work week where they are made to get up five days a week and work on a job? This job would either be doing work they are already familiar with or learning new, viable trades altogether. Whatever the job, it should be something that the inmate could continue to work at once out of the prison system (the system should strive to find programs that will bring in instructors to teach and train inmates on jobs that are currently done in our society). At the end of each work week, inmates should be paid a reasonable sum, from which they would be expected to pay for ALL of their necessities such as rent, food, utilities, and anything else a person would typically be expected to pay for in our world.