The Importance of Prison Reform Essay

In the essay "Prison "Reform" in America," Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as "Prison Reform"

For over centuries, the only form of punishment and discouragement for humans is through the prison system. Because of this, these humans or inmates, are sentenced to spend a significant part of their life in a confined, small room. With that being said, the prison life can leave a remarkable toll on the inmates life in many different categories. The first and arguably most important comes in the form of mental health. Living in prison with have a great impact on the psychological part of your life. For example, The prison life is a very much different way of life than what us “normal” humans are accustomed to living in our society. Once that inmate takes their first step inside their new society, their whole mindset on how to live and communicate changes. The inmate’s psychological beliefs about what is right and wrong are in questioned as well as everything else they learned in the outside world. In a way, prison is a never ending mind game you are playing against yourself with no chance of wining. Other than the mental aspect of prison, family plays a very important role in an inmate’s sentence. Family can be the “make it or break it” deal for a lot of inmates. It is often said that “when a person gets sentenced to prison, the whole family serves the sentence.” Well, for many inmates that is the exact case. While that prisoner serves their time behind bars, their family is on the outside waiting in anticipation for their loved ones to be released. In a way, the families

There are many people who are critical of the US‘s prison sysetm; the idea of locking up those who commit crimes against a society simply to keep them from doing harm. Many say that more rehabilatation is necessary to improve these individuals and, therefore, society as a whole. What are some ways of doing this? Do you agree/disagree with this view and why? Is the prison system currently in place the best option for society? 2 pages, double spaced, 12pt. font.

Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.

“In 2007, one percent of American adults were in prison, which is by far the highest incarceration rate in the world.”( Trachtenberg, B., 2009). Why? Trachtenberg believes it’s because prisons do not rehabilitate people. A violent criminal is sent to prison because he is a threat to society. He is supposed to serve a lengthy term so that he will learn his lesson and become a productive member of society. During his time there he is supposed to learn to appreciate work by cooking, doing laundry, or some other prison job. While he is there he can receive his GED so that he can get a job when he gets out. This plan has good intentions but it has been proven to be ineffective.

When people think of reform movements, they often look for one key sign, and ask one key question of whether that the reform was a success. Did the reform create a lasting change in the way people view the institution that was reformed? All the great reformation movements, from Horace Mann and his education reforms, to Martin Luther, and the Protestant Reformation, to the civil rights movement, all created lasting change in the minds of the average person. One other reform, often overlooked historically is the Prison Reform movement. As the world shifted from 18th to 19th century ways of life, many key aspects of life underwent tremendous change. As the United States gained their independence from Britain and began to shape their own

The United States prison system struggles eminently with keeping offenders out of prison after being released. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than third of all prisoners who were arrested within five years of released were arrested within six months after release, with more than half arrested by the end of the year (Hughes, Wilson, & Beck, 2001). Among prisoners released in 2005 in 23 states with available data on inmates returned to prison, about half (55 percent) had either a parole or probation violation or an arrest for a new offense within three years that led to imprisonment (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2014). Why are there many ex-offenders going back to prison within the first five years of release? Are there not enough resources to help offenders before or/and after being released from prison.

In a perfect world, there would not be prisons due to the lack of crime. This is not a perfect world, and many of the prisons are overcrowded. The penitentiaries are full with a mixture of violent and nonviolent prisoners. By putting nonviolent offenders in prisons with violent offender increases the likelihood of them being associated with gangs and decrease their availability of getting rehabilitation (Smith-Heisters, 2008). The majority of the offenders are nonviolent and is in prison for drug usage. The federal system was unable to produce the rights given in the 6th and 14th Amendments and medical help to the prisoners getting out on parole because of overcrowding (Smith-Heisters, 2008). “77% of the growth in intake to America’s state and federal prisons between 1978

Prison reform controversy in the United States began before the American Revolution. Different reform tactics wore modified since then; still the question is does the prison reform system in place work or, is it just a scam to splurge American taxpayer’s money at government’s will?

Prison is the place in which criminals go to after being convicted of a crime, it is also known that they are stripped away of several freedoms once they incarcerated. With this comes the movement of prison reform, which is a movement that is trying to achieve better conditions in prisons and create a better system when it comes to sentencing for crimes. Since the start of the incarceration system it has always been a problem trying to figure out how to punish criminals, without hurting their humanity. The main problem was making sure that they protect the public while still allowing those who were once imprisoned to still be able to re-enter their community after their sentence has come to an end. The prison reform movement is meant to create

  After Earl Shriner was released from Prison in 1987, he raped and strangled a seven-year-old boy, then cut off his penis and left him to die (Leo). Reginald Muldrew, who is linked to more than 200 sexual attacks, served sixteen years and was released from prison, only to create trouble again in Indiana (Leo). Did these individuals receive the right punishment or rehabilitation for their imprisonment crime?

Having prisons should mean having protection for citizens. Well there needs to be some improvements. Prison should be a place where the criminal learns that the crime committed should never have happened. Being a victim of any sort of crime is life changing. These crimes can be life changing in ways that make a person have doubts about all sorts of things in life. Preventing these life changing crimes would be the best way for anyone to feel protected. Crimes happen on a daily a basis, but it is how the society reacts that matters. The criminal should be punished properly and take responsibility according to their crime.

In society there are four main reasons for prisons as a way to punish criminal deviance and two of these four are incapacitation, and deterrence. Incapacitation is when criminals are put into prisons to separate them from society and to prevent them from committing more crimes in the future. This part of prisons is definitely successful because it locks them away so they can't hurt other people and at least for a duration of time prevents them from committing more crimes. This is also probably the most effective of the four as well because prisons aren't very good at accomplishing the other three other than maybe retribution. The other reason is deterrence which is when the prison tries to scare other criminals that aren’t in prison so that

Making prisons feel like dungeons and packing them like rats has to end. Who is really being protected? The public seems to have a sensation of safety knowing that these individuals are locked behind bars. Prisons were designed to operate with a minimum staff. Prisons in to-days world use video and audio surveillance to decrease staff supervision. Prisons provide little contact between staff and the criminally accused. Prisons patrol the corridors and use more technology. What about the humanity of locking these individuals all together under one roof. The biggest problem with any close quarter is that human beings have a sense or a need of their space. It does not have to be the whole cell, but an inmate needs to feel as if he or she can breathe, in a sense. Not much space, but it is there space. Everyone must respect the space; however limited space, and over population are the main reasons that prisons fail as a

“Prison does not cure prisoners. They are not places that effectively punish crime. They just produce criminals who move through prison as if it were a revolving door.” According to (Strauss). Prisons are not efficient or helpful to really anybody, as show by this quote. They are just a waste of time and money. So Inmates should go to a healing program instead of jail.