by Dante Ghi

Created on: January 08, 2008

Ever since Man segregated the first criminals away from the rest of society, the question 'Does prison rehabilitate' has been asked. In American prisons, it has been asked the loudest. After the reforms of the mid Twentieth Century, many thought the answer had been found. Better housing, more humane treatment, and educational opportunities abounded. The question still lingers, does prison rehabilitate?

First, let us look at the question we are trying to answer. What does the word 'rehabilitate' mean? Webster defines 'rehabilitate' as 'restoring rank, privileges, or property one has lost; to restore the good name or reputation of'. To restore. That implies that there was something there to be lost in the first place. That an individual had good morals, had an understanding of right and wrong, and had a good reputation to begin with. With the majority of prisoners, this simply is not true. The Bureau of Justice, in a 2003 report on the subject, reported that "68% of State inmates did not receive a high school diploma". 68% of inmates (at a State level) did not have the basic education that, for many, is provided free of charge. High school not only provides education for informed choices, it also provides proper socialization for future interaction with society.

Second, let us look at how society views a prisoner, or former prisoner. Many on the street level view it as a badge of honor. An individual does time for a charge, is taken away from his family and friends, and comes back a hero. Some minorities view it as the price to pay for living in 'White America'. Employers view convicts as a risk, however. Many employers are reluctant to employ an individual who may, in their estimation, victimize them. Honestly, who wants to employ a thief? Or an individual with anger issues that may be prone to assaultive behavior? Convicts re-entering society only qualify for the lowest, most menial jobs due to their status of 'convict'. Most minimum wage jobs are not sufficient for survival, let alone building a better life on, thus allowing individuals to return to their former actions to make ends meet.

Finally, as Michael Moore, the former head of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, once said 'why are we giving these men keys to their own cells? They didn't have keys to anything on the street?'. Prison often provides a level of existence, although a restrained one, that many inmates did not experience on the street. Three meals a day, their own bed, their own room, and a level of discipline not found in the majority of society. In prison, an inmate is told when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, and when to play. In society, we rely on our parents to teach us the self discipline to know when to do these things ourselves. Yet, with all the discipline, we are not teaching the inmates anything useful for life. A majority have 'jobs', if cleaning a small area of grass or sweeping a floor twice a day is considered work. We do not teach the value of hard work. We allow street associations to continue inside the fence with little resistance. For many, prison is a vacation from the stress of low income living in America.

Does prison rehabilitate? No. Our society is not yet civilized enough for prison, in it's current form, to rehabilitate. Prisons in the United States are merely places that do the job a parent should have cone much earlier in the inmates life. If parents had provided, in most cases, the discipline and direction needed, the inmate would have made better choices, more informed choices, and avoided prison. Prisons, in the US, are merely adult day care facilities.

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