Does Prison Rehabilitate?

Prisons are not made for rehabilitation. If a person expects this to occur they are sadly mistaken and will be disappointed. It is a prison's purpose to offer the programs to the prison population so that they may rehabilitate themselves. No man can force another man to change their behavior or moral compass.

As a child you were raised according to your parent's beliefs. The older you get the more you either agree with your parents ideals or not. If you don't you form your own set of ideals and beliefs. With these ideals comes your ability to conform your behavior to your beliefs. You choose how to behave. You choose whether to obey the law or not.

As a prisoner, you choose whether you want to change your behavior and rehabilitate yourself, or continue your criminal ways. It has been my experience that very few prisoners actually want to change their behavior. When given the option of attending self-improvement programming, or hanging out on the yard and playing cards, or sleeping the days away, very few choose the programming. Many prisoners have to be forced, by threat of discipline, to even get them to attend the simplest of programs. And then when they do attend they do not typically put much effort into taking something positive away from the program.

So if prison doesn't rehabilitate criminals, then what does it do? It warehouses criminals while they serve their debt to society. It offers them an opportunity to change, but does not make them change. Prison offers criminals an opportunity to come together and plot and plan their next move upon their release, whether it is positive or negative. There is no way to prevent this from occurring without being inhumane and placing prisoners in solitary confinement for the entirety of their sentence.

You can offer a person all the help in the world, but if they are not willing to change themselves then they won't. A lot of prisoners do not want to change. They are not sorry for the crimes they committed, they are sorry they got caught. While in prison they plan how to continue to commit crimes and not get caught next time. They confer with one another and discuss what works and what doesn't work. If only we could get them to put this much effort in changing their behaviors, maybe there would be less recidivism. The recidivism rates in the United States are high. Within three years of their release, 67% of former prisoners are rearrested and 52% are re-incarcerated. I believe it is because the majority of prisoner's truly don't want to change themselves. They are waiting on the prison system to change them, which of course is not going to happen. Prisons are not intended to punish, but are an opportunity for a person to educate themselves and change.

Source:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933722.html