Criminal Rehabilitation

Criminal Rehabilitation: A Second Chance

In this world, everybody makes a mistake at some point in their lives; it isn’t until after they have made the mistake when people start to wish they could go back… fix things. No one who is willing to work for it should be denied of a second chance in life. Many people think that the solution to most of society’s problems is to “lock them all up.” In reality that is making matters worse. Criminal rehabilitation can not only give offenders the opportunity to start a new life, but it can also reduce crime and with less people in prisons the taxes would also go down.
Society needs to help with rehabilitation in order for ex-inmates to get better. To truly rehabilitate the criminal, communities need the help. They need to give them “the support of families, schools and churches” (Ivanko). Society doesn’t think about what the inmates are coming home too when they are released. They don’t know where or how to start and without programs to help and guide them they will fall into recidivism. If a person has family by their side the urge to not let them down becomes their motivation, without it they have no reason to become a better person. Family as well as their community plays an important role in ex-inmates rehabilitation. In other cases, a person may have a rough life with factors such as “a dysfunctional family, has little education, no medical care, no job… and no ongoing drug or psychological counseling” (Ivanko), how does society expect them to not fall back into their old life style. They need to be surrounded by people who are trying to have them change their lives. The same things that made a man or woman fall into bad habits are the same things that will eventually have them fall back in. Most ex-inmates want to change their life when they are released, but with no help and so many negative factors surrounding them it is almost near impossible. Society should try to help instead of thinking they should all be locked up, because clearly that is not helping anyone. With rehabilitation programs they would stay out of prison, become an active member of the community and get the second chance many of them crave to have.
Although many might believe that rehabilitation does not work, there are cases of real people who were imprisoned and once released on parole they were able to change their lives with the help and support of others. Charles Gantt is a perfect example. Gantt is an ex-inmate who turned his life completely around. He even stated himself that “at any time, [he’s] just 24 hours from being back in prison, but [he’s] not going to do anything like that. The old ways don’t even interest [him] anymore” (Tucker). During his prison time Gantt converted into Christianity and was able to stay in his sons lives through the program “Concerned Fathers.” Once he was released he had no family to pick him up and he didn’t know where to start. With the help of a program called Alliance for Concerned Men, he got a $5 per hour job, eventually he got his life together and had a job of $13 per hour. He was with his kids and family and even though old friends call him fake whenever they run into each other he knows better than to go back to his old ways. He became an inspiration to many, because he proved that with some help and guidance starting fresh and picking up one’s life in order to fix one’s mistakes really can occur. Another ex-inmate, Chester Hart, stated that there are not many services waiting to help when someone is released so that “you’ve got to have a program like [AMEN] to help you get settled, to get some momentum going” (Tucker). Hart did 12 years for drug and robbery and he was on parole for another 40 years. AMEN gave him a job and he did not have a single violation since. AMEN begins with three-week sessions in job placement. They say that most inmates get jobs after completing the course. It is programs like AMEN that help there ex-inmates once they are released. The moment they are released they have two roads which are: trying to start a new and better life or falling back into old habits. With a little push they can be lead into the right road to keep them away from crimes and out of prison. Since society insists that to solve every problem, criminals should be locked up. People should be aware that more imprisonment does not help. Considering all the facts it is clear that “crime has risen dramatically over the past twenty-five years in many other cities” (Currie). Instead of imprisoning everyone in order to resolve “problems” they should put them in rehabilitation centers. In prison all that comes out is tougher ex-inmates who will care even less when committing crimes the second or third time. If they are put through rehabilitation the possibility for them to commit another crime and end up back in jail are decreased. Currie explains that social programs “can help to reduce crime, such as child welfare and job training services” (Currie). Again, it is said that with the help of society and rehabilitation programs ex-inmates can get help once released and therefore the crime rates would get lower. All they need is guidance and support instead of judging them and thinking they should spend the rest of their lives in prison. It is not just one person claiming that offenders can change their lives; there are multiple cases of people claiming it can help therefore it would not hurt to give them the chance.
There are people who disagree with these ideas. They say that parole and probation have not succeeded as alternatives. Some people believe that “courts and parole boards are too lenient toward offenders, allowing even those who commit violent crimes such as rape and murder to serve fractions of their sentences” (Bessette). In most cases, a criminal with that type of record will not be released into society. In the occasion that they were released, rehabilitation programs are there to change the person and give them a fresh start. If they have been released then they have most likely earned the right to be back into society. They deserve a chance to restart their lives just as much as the next person that is if they have earned it. It is not proven that criminal rehabilitation can help all kinds of criminals, but that is why there are so many different types of rehabilitations. Maybe all some need is help, because they are ready for a new chance. Whereas some may need therapy to see that they can have a better life. Bessette also states that if “parole boards are too generous in granting releases from prison, then parole can be restricted or even abolished” (Bessette). Abolishing parole boards would be taking away the chance for some of them to restart their lives. It may be true that some of them do not deserve a second chance and that is because they do not wish to change their ways. In those cases, those men or women should not be given the chance to be released until they are truly changed for the better. Either way some men/women did not have big crimes on their hands and taking away parole would not be fair to them. It is unfair to take these programs away from them because they never even got the chance to prove society wrong.
In some cases they might say that creative sentencing is also not an effective alternative. The entire purpose of creative sentencing is to create an attempt to “make punishment more meaningful by designing a sentence to rehabilitate an offender and serve the community. However, some creative sentences have been controversial” (Abramson). There was a case of a mother convicted of child abuse who had to be implanted with a Norplant contraceptive as part of her probation. Anyone can agree that a certain punishment like this would be sort of unfair, because even though she was charged with child abuse why should she have to go through that, when they can simply give her anger management control to help become a better mother. There are so many different options that could have been part of her parole. Why should a judge be the one to decide that she is no longer allowed to have children, when it is her body? One mistake does not make her a bad person, she just made bad decisions. In California, child molesters have to “undergo “chemical castration” to suppress their libidos” (Abramson). He states that this is inhumane and it only expresses the true feelings and rage that the community has toward this type of offenders. For a part of that he is correct. They should not have to undergo that process because it can affect their bodies; there are many other ways to give a creative punishment. Creative punishments are a good alternative to make them change their ways and not repeat the crime, although there should be some kind of extent to them. For example none of the creative punishments should cause any physical harm to the person or be inhumane in any form or matter.
Others might say that creative punishments are indeed effective. They sort of make it difficult for the offender to try or want to repeat the crime. For example in Houston, a music instructor molested two of his students. In his parole he was “forced to give up his $12,000 piano and post a sign on his front door warning children to stay away” (Mulholland). It might seem a bit odd, but that is the entire intention of this type of punishment. It was said that he took away the two girls desire to play piano again, so they took away what would hurt him the most. He was a music instructor with a high quality piano that he loved. They took it away from him, and it will make him learn a lesson. He was not even allowed to purchase another piano until the end of his 20-year probation. So in some cases, creative punishments are not so bad. Most importantly the sentencing would be put together in “sentencing packages appropriate to the criminal and the crime with a view toward rehabilitation” (Mulholland), by experts such as lawyers and social workers. This would work out because the creative punishment would have to be a perfect fit for the person and it would also have to depend on the crime, because it would not be possible to give the same punishment to a drug dealer and a murderer. This would also be useful because if they are experts then they can make sure that inhumane punishments are not given out to anyone.
Some other alternative include shame-based punishments, and they too can be very effective. These type of punishments “use the power of shame to punish offenders and deter crime” (Etzioni). For example, they have put up the pictures of known prostitutes online or on local television to discourage prostitution. That way they feel less comfortable doing the crime because the entire community knows about them. It would also prevent them from doing a crime because of the fear of being on one of these lists. No one enjoys the feeling of shame, and everyone would rather not go through that so the easiest thing to do is to not do the crime. If a young person is put in jail “they are likely to be released as more hardened criminals than they were when they were arrested” (Etzioni). In jail youngsters are often abused and sending them in there would not make them learn a lesson, in most cases they come out with the urge to be just as bad as the people they were with in jail that way no one ever takes advantage of them again. If they were to have been punished with a shame-punishment then it is a bigger possibility that they will not do it again. These shame-based punishments not only keep people out of jail, but they rehabilitate an offender in their own way.
In some cases, an offender might be charged with drug possession, but no criminal offense. Some of these people are drug addicts and they are not getting the help needed in prison. Drug offenders should be “sentenced to work on breaking their addictions” (Everett). In the prisons they do not have the tools necessary to help them break their addictions. Sending them to rehab would help them better themselves. It would also keep crimes from occurring because most drug addicts will do whatever is necessary to obtain their materials. That is a sign that they need drug help and not prison time. A drug addict in a prison is just simply “binding time until the next fit” (Everett). As soon as they get out they will eventually fall back into doing drugs. They should be sent to drug rehabilitation centers in order to help them stay away from drugs. Once they are clean, most of them can have a safe life of their own. Putting them in prison is not going to do much other than to increase the crave for the substance. Drug rehabilitation centers can give drug addicts the help they need in order for them to get that second chance they deserve.
With all the crime rates rising, inmates should be sent to some type of criminal rehabilitation in order to help them turn their lives around. Most of them deserve a second chance and with the help and support of programs, society and family they can achieve their goals and restart their new lives. If they are sent to rehabilitation centers then they have less people in prison and that means that taxes would also decrease. There are so many different types of rehabilitation, and most of them are effective. Everyone deserves a second chance to fix their mistakes.