Troubles with Reentering the Community After Doing Time in Prison

In the time of serving their sentence, prisoners are allowed to take part in several treatment programs. The prison facility offers educational training, vocational training, psychotherapy, and counseling for any inmate that seeks the knowledge and help. When the State Psychiatric Hospitals around the nation closed, thousands of people with mental health disabilities will be sent to prison to stay off the streets and to receive help. The programs in prison offer medicine and counseling to inmates with a mental illness. The problem with these programs are whether the programs works and the programs are not available to inmates in need outside of the prison walls. There are many obstacles that prisoners face once they are released into the community; recidivism, finding a job, mental illness, social services and reuniting with children. Inmates are not prepared enough for social problems that arises in everyday life.

Reentry programs for inmates vary from state to state around the United States. Some states spend an excessive amount of money to ensure their parolees are prepared to enter back into the community. “Effective programs typically share certain features such as using behavioral and cognitive approaches occurring in the offenders’ natural environment, being multi – modal and intensive enough to be effective, encompassing rewards for pro – social behavior, targeting high – risk and high – criminogenic need individuals and matching the learning styles and abilities of the offender, (Allen)” (Listwan et al., 2006 pg 305). In these programs the instructor teaches the inmates how to have a positive outlook on life. The programs also teach inmate how to control their temper in a stressful situation. Other states that have “bro...

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