Incarceration In Prison Essay

America, the land of the free, as well as the not so free. As well as being the largest in the world, the prison population within the United States provides proof that it is the most broken forms of incarceration. The U.S. subscribes to the notion that all people that have committed a crime can be rehabilitated and released as a fully functioning member of society. However, this entire concept is wrong.
Firstly, the programs that have been established to rehabilitate ex-convicts are ineffective. Time and time again studies have shown that these programs do not take the right measures to rehabilitate their groups. These programs try to use a cookie-cutter method to rehabilitate each prisoner. From before release to after, the programs do little to educate the prisoners on how to function as law-abiding citizens.
Secondly, the way society sees criminals is wrong. They become “social pariahs” and are treated as sub-humans. This behavior isolates criminals and makes them not care about changing their behavior. Society as a whole must change in order for criminals to be helped. If society cannot change, then neither can the inmates.
And finally, the way the the government spends its money on prisoners is ineffective. The Second Chance Act created to help prisoners reintegrate is helping, but it is not enough. The government does not need to spend all of its money on helping prisoners reintegrate. It needs to change the environment and the communities that criminals come from.

While other countries use different methods of incarceration-deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution-the United States uses the prison system of rehabilitation. This system of rehabilitation treats every prisoner as an equal that is meant to get the exact...

... middle of paper ...

...eir illegal lifestyles and return to prison over and over again. When it finally did realize this, the population in prisons was one percent of the population of the entire United States. Through trial and error, the government set up programs to rehabilitate and reenter offenders back into society. But society no longer wanted convicts to live within its confines. So, without a change in society, offenders were sent back to their dangerous ways. Finally, after so many years of trial and error, of failed program after another, the Second Chance Act drafted and signed into law. With this act, organizations and state governments were federally granted hundreds of millions of dollars to help offenders finally reenter society and be successful. Although the tip of the iceberg has just been scratched, it is better late than never to finally start resolving this problem.