by Susan Hillman

Created on: April 17, 2009

Does the Prison System Work?
Why are so many going through it?

The definition of rehabilitation is as follows: the restoration of someone to a useful place in society (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, n.d.). This basically means to restore someone to where he or she can be a useful and functioning part of society. Does our prison system rehabilitate? The prison system offers a variety of ways to help rehabilitate offenders: life skills classes, drug treatment programs, college, job training, and a variety of other programs. Even though these programs do help the minority of inmates in prison, the prison system is not rehabilitating the majority of inmates because the majority of inmates are leaving the prison system better criminals than they were entering the prison system; therefore, the prison system has a high recidivism rate.

People have been wondering for a while if the prison system does work- there are studies that date back to the 1920s. One of the most popular studies used to determine how effective the prison system is was researched by Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, in which they followed inmates released from Massachusetts Reformatory in 1921 and 1922. At the end of five years of research, out of the 510 inmates that the Gluecks tracked, "Almost eighty percent were not rehabilitated" (Glaser, 1969, p. 8). The research that the Gluecks did shows the general public that recidivism and rehabilitation has been a problem a lot longer than most people think. Since the recidivism rates keep climbing all the time, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Where does this recidivism rate come from? Are these offenders reoccurring felons or probation violations? And with the probation violations, are they felons returning for non-felony violations? The answer to this question is in statistics. According to U.S. Department of Justice: Bureau of Justice Statistics (August 8, 2007), "Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime." Sex offenders also carry a high percentage of recidivism. Also reported by the U.S. Department of Justice, "Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape." These statistics tell a story all on their own- the prison system is not doing a very good job of rehabilitating the offenders that enter the prison system.

Why is

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next Page >>