Prison Rehabilitation

Dictionary.com defines rehabilitation “as the ability to restore to a condition of good health, ability to work, or the like.” Modern day society has the mentality that everyone can be “healed” or “fixed.” This belief also carries over into the prison systems of today. Rehabilitation is at the forefront of that thinking. Originally, prisons were built for the sole purpose of housing the criminals away from society as a form of punishment for their crime. The hope was that he or she would learn his or her lesson and not reoffend. Prison was a place a criminal was sent to pay his or her debt to society, but can the prisoner of today be rehabilitated and returned to society as a contributing member?

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which is an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, was created in 1930 with the goal of giving prisoners better care and treatment to hold the prisons accountable and to a set standard that would be audited. Over the years, the BOP has taken a proactive step in the direction of rehabilitation. It currently offers The Release Preparation Program, which prepares the convict 18 months before he or she is released on various job skills, training, and even resume writing. The Federal Bureau of Prisons shows, “Research has conclusively demonstrated that participation in a variety of programs that teach marketable skills helps to reduce recidivism. Additionally, institution misconduct can be significantly reduced through programs that emphasize personal responsibility, respect, and tolerance of others” (Release Preparation, para 2). The hope of the pro-rehabilitation believers is that investing the time and money into the prisoner will make him or her less likely to re-commit crimes once he or she is released from the prison system. Not only are taxpayers paying less money to house and feed the reoffender, but also society is benefitting from lower crime rates and hopefully getting a person who wants to be a contributing member to society.

Over the last century the idea of giving prisoners the resources to improve themselves has evolved into millions of dollars spent on trying to rehabilitate them. There are those who do not accept the concept of rehabilitation and want prisons to remain a place of confinement. Today, prisoners can earn degrees, receive treatment, and attend specialized training courses. The question becomes when prisoners are released back into society, are they reformed, and has rehabilitation in the prison system reduced the recidivism rates? According to Stevens, “Results show that inmates who earned associate and baccalaureate degrees while incarcerated tend to become law-abiding individuals significantly more often after their release from prison than inmates who had not advanced their education while incarcerated. One conclusion that may be drawn from these findings is it is less expensive to educate inmates than to incarcerate them” (Stevens & Ward, 1997).