Clearing some things up

After reviewing some of my old comments I have gotten the feeling that I have not been completely clear.

Up until the post of violent juveniles, the rehabilitation programs I have talked about have been for non-violent crimes. I still believe that rehabilitation programs should be put in place for those incarcerated for violent crimes, but these programs should be different.

Rehabilitation programs will not take the place of a prison sentence. Most programs are done while the prisoner is in prison, some continue once they have been released, and there are a few that I have scanned over that are completely separate from prison and are based on community support. Those few programs would certainly only be reprimanded to those who have committed certain crimes. In my opinion, prison can have extremely negative effects on a person. If they were convicted of drug possession, for example, going to prison only exposes them to more criminals, more drug addicts, more bad influences.

I have also had many comments about rehabilitation programs not being appropriate because they will not be a deterrence to crime. In my opinion, knowing that you will be taking classes, working, and going to drug rehab while in prison is no less a deterrent than just simply going to prison. It also seems clear that since the US recidivism rate is as high as 63%, we can assume that our current punishment based system is not much of a deterrence - even those who have already been to prison are not deterred from returning. Even the most extreme forms of punishment, life in prison and the death penalty, have been debated as to whether they are effective deterrents to crime.

I hope that this has cleared things up a bit . . . or at least answered some of the comments I have received.