by Rebecca Williams

Created on: June 03, 2009   Last Updated: June 05, 2009

An ongoing debate in the criminal justice world has to do with the purpose of prisons. One camp holds that the purpose of a prison is to punish a wrongdoer. The other steadily maintains the position that prisons should be used to rehabilitate wrongdoers and make them lawful citizens. However, both camps have valid points; the purpose of prison is to keep an offender from committing another crime. Prisons would be most effective if used for a mixture of rehabilitation and punishment because pure rehabilitation does not work, pure punishment does not work, and a better solution needs to be found.

Pure rehabilitation does not work. If it did, there would be no need for prisons in the first place; criminals would be sent to boarding schools instead. However, prisons of America face a huge overcrowding crisis; so huge, in fact, that construction companies are scrambling to keep up with the demand of more facilities (Schlosser).

In addition, one cannot ignore the fact that the majority of people in prisons are repeat offenders (Hughes). One cannot assume that all of these repeat offenders have never experienced any form of rehabilitation, especially considering its current popularity.

There are those who would argue that rehabilitation does work. These people would cite cases such as McKean, which is a prison in Pennsylvania celebrated in the article, "A Model Prison" by Robert Worth. In this institution, inmates are educated and allowed far more than the usual amount of recreation. The result is that the incidents of violence in McKean are almost non-existent (Worth).

Also, the Criminon Program, which is a program meant to rehabilitate prisoners through online or correspondence courses, follows many of the guidelines set out for effective rehabilitation (La Vigne). Theoretically, this would mean that they are successful in their efforts.

In "Prison Drama", John Rosales tells the story of Nancy Ahlquist, a teacher in a prison. She has met with success in helping students to acquire their GED. One student, who now has a wife, children and job, claimed, "Without Mrs. Ahlquist, I could never have done what I've done" (Rosales). Therefore, rehabilitation does work.

However, the inmates are punished if they do not behave, so pure rehabilitation does not work. When an inmate acts contrary to the set rules, he is punished by a reduction in recreation or solitary confinement (Worth 42). Therefore, even in this seemingly almost perfect prison, there are resorts to punishment;

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