Punishment Contradicts Rehabilitation

How do you punish a person who is already being punished? This is the problem the penal system faces. On the surface solitary confinement seems like the perfect solution. Put into place to protect prison workers and other inmates from being harmed by dangerous and unruly prisoners, the side effects of solitary confinement can often be far worse and destructive to prison rehabilitation than the benefits of such a system. The abuse and overuse of this form of punishment has had severe repercussions on a social and moral level. Social exclusion, rehabilitation in the form of punishment, and prison workers' lack of control in many maximum security prisons all contribute to the detrimental effects that solitary, as it is colloquially known, has on a person’s mental stability, often times turning rational decision making into a near impossibility for the individuals who undergo this mentally taxing prison within a prison. Separation, incapacitation, and deterrence from further criminal activity have always been the major reasons for why prisons exist. The ultimate goal is to remove these individuals from society and prevent them from further harming others, but the conditions in which the offenders are introduced to inside these institutions often increase the likelihood that that they will cause more harm when they are released back into society. Poor application and separation from normal functioning social systems may be exactly why prisoners are unable to successfully rehabilitate back into society.

Punishment contradicts rehabilitation

Prisons were first put into place to punish the guilty, and prison workers often take pride in carrying out the law with this principle imprinted in their minds. But this fairly new idea of ...

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...ow or facing life imprisonment, will never have the opportunity to walk in normal society again, and their rehabilitation will do little to affect the general public. But for most, prison is only a temporary incapacitation, a deterrent, an attempt at rehabilitation at the end of which they will be released back into society to become productive or continue to be destructive. Prolonged solitary confinement produces extremes that prove unfavorable for the individual and the state. To assume that a person can be rehabilitated simply by adding punishment upon punishment, placing them in mentally destructive conditions such as solitary confinement, is not only antiquated, but beyond the rational comprehension of a society as advanced as our own. Perhaps we are not as we assume ourselves to be. Perhaps, as a people, we still have a lot to learn ourselves.