by Jamie Pierce

Created on: August 03, 2010

When we look at what it means to reform, we must realize that it means to change.  We must also look at what constitutes a criminal.  If we are to say a criminal is anyone who breaks the law, then everyone is a criminal.  We have all broken a law, intentionally or not.  Whether it be speeding, running a red light, smoking somewhere we shouldn't or anything else of that nature, we are all criminals.  Now, if we are to use this term to mean felony crimes and only those who are caught and convicted, we have narrowed ourselves down to a select number of people.  We can then look at how many of those who were convicted of these crimes and determine how many of them were caught and convicted a second time.  If they were not caught and convicted a second time, we can now say those people were reformed.  This is a logical fallacy.  The lack of proof of a second crime does not preclude the action from occurring nor does it mean that the criminal has been reformed simply because they have not been caught.

As a whole, the law of most places in the United States creates criminals of people who otherwise might not have been.  We make it illegal to do some of the strangest things.  In some places, it is illegal to work on your vehicle in your own driveway.  Is someone who is caught doing this a criminal?  If this was you and you were given a ticket for doing this, would you stop?  The ticket was designed to enforce behavior, but it does not reform the criminal.  So, by virture of fear of cost, you do not work on your vehicle.  You, however, have not changed your underlying beliefs and therefore, you are not reformed.  As the penal system in the United States is generally referred to as "Correctional Facilities," we must believe that we are attempting to reform criminals.  In the case of those with life sentences without possibility of parole, is there any reason to reform them?  We try to reform them, but to what end?  These people will never again see the light of day and yet, as a society we feel that we must change them.  Yet, no matter what we do, there is no way to state if they are truly reformed as our earlier point of logic stated that the criminal must have an opportunity to committ a second crime and not do so to be able to judge them as reformed.  For these reasons, the criminal can never be truly reformed.

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