Prison Inmate Rehabilitation Through Education

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        Kayli Sears

Prison Inmate Rehabilitation Through Education

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world and for the first time in the nation's history, more than one in every 100 American adults is confined in a prison or jail (Vicini). The current growth is not necessarily driven by a parallel increase in crime or population growth.  The increase more stems from the wave of policy changes that are sending more lawbreakers to prison and through the tougher three-strike laws and other sentencing structures that are keeping convicted criminals in jail or prison longer.  An even more alarming statistic is that more than half of inmates released from jail or prison are habitual repeat offenders who end up incarcerated over and over again.  The necessity to keep violent criminals and those who threaten communities behind bars or to make sure those that break laws are punished and face consequences for their actions is of unquestionable importance, but the high prison populations and the high cost of American tax dollars to house these inmates proves that there is a flaw in the system.  No one seems to be benefiting in the long run.

        The high probability of an offender becoming a repeat offender once they are released is not an issue that can be ignored.  Since the judicial programs can not seem to deter convicted criminals from returning there has to be some major flaws in the systems.  The prisons are overcrowded and the overall prison environments are so harsh in most that you would think not even the most harden criminals would think of chancing returning once they are released.  This country’s overcrowded prisons are causing for overcrowding of our states and federal fiscal problems too.  “States last year spent more than $44 billion on corrections, the report said, compared with $10.6 billion in 1987, the report said, adding that the rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending” (Vicini). Finding enough money to house, feed and care for all the inmates in America’s prison system is a burden that all states across the country are struggling to meet.  Lawmakers are forced to cut or limit funding to other vital programs such as education and healthcare to meet the ever increasing bill of our prison systems.  Programs across the country that are vital to Americans and the continuing function of our society will continue to detrimentally suffer if we do not find a solution or a resolve to the increase of our prison populations.

        Prison life can be and usually is extremely harsh and in some cases because of the increase in sentences for certain crimes, the punishment can sometimes out weigh the crime itself.  However, the high probability rate of repeat offenders proves that the condition of prison life for those that are repeat offenders is not a determent.  When someone grows up in a life of crime in an area where crime is prevalent and in some cases where crime life is part of their family life then it becomes the only life that an individual knows.  A life of crime becomes there own comfort zone.  Most all convicted criminals will tell you that although they do not like prison it is not something that they do not become used to and conditioned for.  For some the intermittent jail and prison sentences that repeat offenders serve becomes part of their familiarity of their life because they have never been shown that they can achieve something better.  “Accordingly, the returns to crime will be higher for inmates released to urban areas” (Allen).

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  They are never successfully rehabilitated whereas most individual can be rehabilitated if given the proper opportunity.  When released from prison most will go right back to the lifestyle that put them in prison in the first place since they have never been directed down a different path other than the path of crime. “If the trend continues, prisons are likely to become merely overcrowded holding cells which release inmates without alternatives and tools and skills to apply for jobs, and become legitimate members of the community. This trend more then likely guarantees these inmates become repeat offenders and return ...

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