Prison Reform is Necessary: Must Focus on Respect for Human Life

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Prison Reforms

A Prison Reform is defined as the act of improving the surroundings in which prisoners are exposed to while in prisons, with an aim of administering an effective and efficient punishment to the inmate. The reforms are carried out with major goal of ensuring that the various regulations stipulated in prison manuals, sentence that are to be delivered in courts and all other kinds of legislations are effected to the letter. With the reforms, a new direction of the penalty system is attained in each prison. This penalty system differs from the former system that normally has the perception that the lives of inmates are not important. The system gives an eminent significance to the live of the inmate in society as well as the state in general.

Who carries out reforms in a given state or country is question that the community is left with no answers on. To give an insight to this query, the people who are the key factors to carrying out prison reforms as well as their timely implementations include the various state administrators or agencies, sovereign head of states (kings, queens), the immediate surrounding community members, advocates for human rights and experts in penology . Moreover, the non-governmental organizations, human right advocates, and other community based organizations are a prerequisite to the attainment of a substantial development in the reforms of the prisons in a given state or country.

What should be done to attain reforms is the key element to formulation of the prison reforms in a particular state. Some of the activities that would aid in a timely achievement of the same include: organization of various workshops to teach the inmates life skills that they may use when they are out of pris...

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...actions. The inmates in these prisons are human beings that deserve to enjoy the rights and privileges enjoyed by other beings at no extra cost. In all situations, the prisoners should be in a position to acquire relevant training on various life skills, enjoy services such as entertainment, and sports, enjoy well balanced diet in all situations, have access to medical facilities, be provided with clean sanitation facilities, and to end it all, be able to change his or her behavior and have a respect to the rule of law by the time he or she leaves the prison.

References

Governor Richardson’s. Prison Reform Task Force – September 25, 2009

Norman, Johnston. Prison Reform in Pennsylvania, 2006

Nutz, Thomas. Global Networks and Local Prison Reforms: Monarchs, Bureaucrats and Penological Experts in Early Nineteenth-Century Prussia, History Vol. 23 No. 42005

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