The world will not fall apart if the criminal justice system does not shift from being a punishment focused institution to being focused on rehabilitation. It will continue to be ineffective at reducing the rate of recidivism. The female prisoner population will maintain its steep increase as it has since the 1980s. Prisons will go on being a breading ground for violent behavior and continued criminal activity. We will keep on waisting tax payer's money incarcerating people who once released will only return. And Americans will continue to look at criminals and the crimes they commit as a problem that should be put out of sight and out of mind instead of as a issue that must be solved.
Yes, the world will not fall apart, but we will continue to see ineffective treatment of criminals producing the same ineffective results. The criminal justice system is in such clear need of reform that to deny it would be a crime in itself. This isn't an issue that only matters to those committing crimes, it influences to the society as a whole. This includes each and every person within our society, that means YOU too. We have all been or know someone who has been a victim of crime, by reducing recidivim you are reducing criminal activity. We cannot continue this pattern of ineffective punishment without expecting the same results.
Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Let's keep America out of the loony bin.
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2 comments:
I didn't realize that your previous posts were focusing on non-violent crimes only. When talking only in terms of drug rehabilitation prison reforms do seem valid. I guess it would make economic sense also if it would keep people out of jails. I am looking forward to what you will find about violent crimes. What are your thoughts on non-violent crimes that have large sentences like fraud or tax evasion?
That is a really interesting question to ask. I haven't really thought about it before now. Crimes like those are different from others because they are usually committed by a very different population. Fraud is often committed by very wealthy people, those who own companies, etc. I don't know the facts but I would assume that tax evasion is most often committed by the middle and upper classes (although do not hold me to that). Many "upper class" crimes can be more harmful to our society than most other crimes because they can do major damage to our economy or drop the confidence of Americans in our economy (and confidence is very important). An example of this is Enron in 2001. The Fraud committed by this company caused major crisis in the financial world. For these reasons, I think that long sentences or worthy, especially with Fraud. I cannot feel pity for the rich who selfishly commit crimes to try and get richer. Tax evasion seems different though. I am not sure what the sentence is but if it is very long like you say it is than I think each issue should be looked at separately when deciding. This might be wishful thinking. I think it is more important to look at this crime case by case because there are so many different motivations for why it could be committed because there are so many different types of people who commit it. I don't know if you follow my logic there. What makes answering this question so difficult is that I don't know if rehabilitation would be at all effective for these criminals. Rehabilitation is often for those whose situation in life has been a root cause of their criminal behavior. The programs I have looked into would not help most fraud and tax evasion criminals. This would mean that a long sentence would be strictly for punishment sack. But in this case I think punishment is what is needed (although tax evasion can be due to life situation, this is why it would need more flexible sentences). Really good question, I will keep thinking about this for a while. I hope what I have put isn't too confusing.
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