Since the advent of incarceration many years ago, there has been continuous discussion about which approach—incarceration or rehabilitation—works best. Many arguments have been made by the different critics on which of the two is most effective and efficient in deterring crime, with punishment and crime prevention as the end goal. I personally think that rehabilitation works the best at deterring crime after considering the advantages and drawbacks of both approaches. Life in incarceration is designed to be unbearable; it uses a psychological trigger that is designed to persuade the inmates not to redo the offence or any other offence so that they do not go back to a life in jail and its many ordeals. This is not necessarily an effective technique as it only discourages the perpetrators from indulging in crime with the fear of being caught (Regoli 223). It teaches the perpetrators not to get caught rather than understanding the faults of their acts, the harm it did to others and the real reason as to why they should not be involved in criminal acts. Rehabilitation on the other hand, with the help of qualified physicians and psychologists aims at getting in touch with the inmates’ mind, and tries to express the faults of their deeds (Brooks 66). Rehabilitation has a higher chance of being effective as inmates get to know the real reason as to why crime is wrong and why they should not indulge in it (Cullen 459).
Rehabilitation has been credited with having a policy that encourages the inmates to develop occupational skills in preparation for the life outside prison (Regoli 226). This means that once inmates have been released, they will be well equipped to apply for manual labor and get income thereby reducing their chances of reoffending and turning to life of crime. In addition to this, the policy also encourages the inmates to undergo group therapy sessions so as to try and overcome other psychological problems common among inmates like aggression and drug abuse. It is achieved by putting inmates sentenced with same crimes together in a group to discuss their lives after and before the crime. This helps in understanding the motives and psychological state of their inmates and can help them stay away from redoing the same crimes. In most cases the court makes such sessions mandatory for the inmates (Brooks 66).
Taking a look at the policies entailed in the incarceration, one will understand why it is less successful in effectively reducing the occurrence of reoffending by the inmates. This is because the criminals do their time with no form of psychological intervention to try and help them reform from crime. After release, little would have changed and chances of reoffending is high. Most of these inmates are released with terrible experience and are most often worse than they were sentenced. This is categorically because they are likely to have the same psychological problems such as aggression or drug abuse. For example, convicted murderer Andrew Dawson was sent back to prison after committing murder after release from prison. In 1982, Andrew was given a life sentence after pleading guilty to the murder of 91-year-old Henry Walsh in his flat in Lancashire. A few weeks after his release from prison in 2010, he defenselessly stabbed two of his neighbors, John Matthews and Paul Hancock and stuffed their bodies in the bathtub. It is evident that even after spending years in jail and being cleared by the parole board, Andrew did not reform from his aggressive nature simply because he did not have anyone to help him reform.
In addition to these ex-convicts leave the prison after a long time and find it difficult to adopt to the new life outside prison. This is because they have no skills especially for those sentenced at much younger age. This means that they are not likely to get employed and may settle to a life of crime to make ends meet, rendering the whole process useless and a waste of time and resources (Rukwaru 88).
The incarceration system is in many times seen to be a breeding area for harder criminals. This is because of the fact that many prisons are full of gang members like the MS-13, Crips, Aryan Brothers and the Hells Angels. This means that the likelihood of prisoners to join gangs is substantially increased as joining a gang means that the gang you are loyal to will protect you from other gangs (Rukwaru 76). To top it all, prison life is not easy and has grieve implications to one’s social and psychological being. Joining a gang means that an inmate is more likely to continue doing crime and escalate to worse crimes than he or she could before being sentenced; the likes of homicide, terrorism and human trafficking (Cheng 818). For example, the prison gang phase in New York in 1993 on Rikers Island by two young men Leonard Deadeye Mackenzie and OG Mack. The two founded the United Blood Nation, which is the strongest gang in New York. The Bloods are responsible for some of the most heinous acts in prison, mostly including murder.
The rehabilitation system on the hand tries to get in touch with the inmates at a psychological level. This is done with the aim of making them shun crime and become model citizens. Counseling is very effective in countering the gang ideologies that are fed into these new inmates. Inmates are able to open up to the guards and to their counselors about their life and on its own is a sign that the system is working in rehabilitating the inmates. For example, Mr. Diaz, who is a criminology expert talks of 30 hardest criminals who have reformed through his Criminon Program. A graduate of this program from Florida states that he got a better outlook at the meaning of life and how others wished to be treated and he would recommend the program to anyone. There is a low chance that this graduate will engage in crime after his clearance because now he has reformed psychologically and knows the importance of avoiding crime (Cheng 816).
According to reports, research has showed that rehabilitation for substance abusers works best and is more cost effective than doing time. It is estimated that the drug treatment costs are as low as $1,800 to as high as $6,800 per client. The (DTAP) Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison program of Brooklyn requires offenders to plead guilty to an offence and will be adopted into a residential therapeutically community system that can last close to 2 years as an alternative to incarceration. This program has proven to be successful in curbing recidivism into crime and substance abuse. In addition to this success, it costs tax payers less money as the average cost of incarceration on average sum up to $20,000 per inmate. This kind of money multiplied by the huge numbers of prisoners in the US justice systems totals millions, money that can be well spent in developing other aspects of the country. Furthermore, it is quite pointless to incarcerate a drug addict as it does not serve to benefit him or her in any way. This is primarily because the inmate is likely to suffer many psychological symptoms of sudden drug withdrawal and which without treatment, may lead to suicidal tendencies (Cole 434).
In some cases, halfway housing programs have proved to be effective and have cut the cost to taxpayers. This is where perpetrators of drug associated crimes are housed together in a given building. They are allowed to take up jobs and work with a curfew. It act almost like a rehabilitation center and counselling may be provided for the residents. This method is primarily targeted at helping cut the cost to the tax payers and it has proved to be effective in achieving the goal of rehabilitation (Cullen 452).
Rehabilitation through its various techniques, allows the perpetrator or convict to be at peace affected parties. This is because counselling helps the inmate to see his or her faults and helps expel any form of spite or hard feelings towards the judgment and affected parties (Hucklesby 319). On many occasions inmates have sought revenge for the time they did behind bars. This in many occasions has led to reoffending and untold harm done to the second party and in some few cases, towards the judge. This most often leads to the convicts being sentenced with harsher sentences after rearrests. For example, Steven Avery did time for a rape he did not commit. He had been convicted on the account of an eye witness and nothing else and even with his sixteen alibis, he could not convince the jury of his innocence. After 18 years, a Wisconsin Innocence Project picked up his case and ordered a DNA test through which Steven’s name was cleared. However, in March 2007, he was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of a photographer Teresa Halbach, who had scheduled a meeting with him, on the day he was released in October 2005. Sending him to prison in the first place had hardened Mr. Avery into a murder criminal (Cole 439).
In addition to this, one may argue that incarceration is a form of punishment that targets to warn others who have not be caught or any other person indulged in criminal activity. It uses its arrested perpetrator as an example, to inflict fear so that other people may stop committing crimes. This means that the system does not have any care in changing convict into a model citizen rather it targets to use him as an example of punishment.
Works Cited
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Brooks, Thom. Punishment. Place of publication not identified: Routledge, 2016. Print. 60-69
Bottom of FormCheng, Christina. 27-The Theory of Constraint in Prisons. McGraw hill Professional, 2010. Print. 815-822
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Cole, George F, Christopher E. Smith, and Christina DeJong. The American System of Criminal Justice. , 2017. Print. 432-441
Cullen, Francis. T, and Pamela Wilcox. Encyclopedia for Criminological Theory. Thousand Oaks. Calif. Sage. 2010. Print. 450-467
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Hucklesby, Anthea, and Azrini Wahidin. Criminal Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print. 318-322
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Regoli, Robert M, John D. Hewitt, and Anna E. Kosloski. Exploring Criminal Justice: The Essentials. , 2018. Print. 222-289
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Bottom of FormTop of FormRukwaru, Mutea. Anatomy of Crime. Meru [Kenya: Eureka Publishers, 2008. Print. 72-99.
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