Inmate Rehabilitation
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Should prisons work to rehabilitate inmates? The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes. " Rehabilitation justifies punishment as necessary for the reformation of offenders, that is, for changing their characters so they will conform to the dictates of the law, returning to society as law-abiding and productive citizens" (Rossum and Rossum 24). "According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than 8 million individuals were released from our nation's prisons and jails and returned to the community in 2000. In fact, more than 95 percent of the 2 million people currently incarcerated will one day be released from our prisons and jails" (Gondles 6). Prisons owe it to us, as a nation, to insure inmates are properly rehabilitated before re-entering our society.
"A 1994 BJS recidivism study estimates that within three years, 51.8 percent of inmates released during the year were back in prison either because of a new crime for which they received another prison sentence or because of a technical violation of their parole" (Gondles 6). According to David Sheff, in the state of California alone, two-thirds of the inmates released are back in prison within 18 months (46). To reduce these high numbers of recidivism, inmates must be given the chance for a normal life when released from prison...