The Pros And Cons Of Punishment For Criminals

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The system the United States has instilled for prison and rehabilitation purposes has been shown to be corrupt. The prison system is shown to use punishment on criminals in order to prevent them from continuing deviant, criminal behavior. However, in reality, the forms of punishment that the United States use on criminals proves to be making criminals worse, rather than rehabilitating them. The prison system ruins any chance criminals have in rehabilitating themselves, due to permanent criminal records.
The way the United States punishes their criminals results in aggressive behavior in criminal inmates. Children are exposed to similar punishment as a child in response to inappropriate behavior. Punishments such as this do aid in the development of young children, however severe punishment causes them to form psychological issues, worsening their behavior. The same concept can be applied to criminals, in the United States system, criminals are constantly punished in negative ways to correct their criminal behavior, however, it seems to worsen their behavior. The idea of rehabilitation for incarcerated criminals is a lower priority than punishment to “Get tough on crime” (Haney). Incarcerated criminals seem to receive more punishment than rehabilitation to decrease criminal behavior; this simply gives criminals a reason to continue their aggressive behavior. Not only do criminals receive punishments such as these regardless of their behavior, they also receive punishments from other inmates, causing them to forcefully resume their criminal acts to stay safe. Psychologist Haney says “This approach has created explosive growth in the prison population, while having at most a modest effect on crime rates.” This shows that while puni...

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...an the US prison system in place now and “$250 million has been awarded under the act so far—tiny compared to the combined state and federal prison budget of $75 billion annually” (Gudrais.) With rehabilitation, people can continue to live their daily lives while going through programs to improve their behavior and psychological issues and the increased use of the rehabilitation centers can save the US federal government millions of dollars.
Overall, the American jailing system has too many flaws and even causes a higher crime rate within American society. These prisoners are not only released with a mindset that is worse than when they were in prison, but they are flung into society possibly without somewhere to go. Rehabilitation is a much better alternative to the current United States prison system, and should replace the current system America has in place.

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