For homework, please email a paragraph description of what you think of the US prison system, and any ideas you may have on how to change it so [email protected]
Click on the button below to download the Powerpoint from our presentation today if you would like to look at it before the Q&A on Monday!
This article written by the New York Times gives some really good insight into the rehabilitation programs in place in California. It brings up a concept I have never heard of before reading this article and that is an anti prison. The idea of an anti prison is unlike any prion system we have in the United States and may lead to future incarceration facilities inside of the United States to help inmates. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/18/prison-could-be-productive/punishment-fails-rehabilitation-works
This may seem a little late to post, but all this business about determining the effectiveness of the prison system has been addressed without us giving you a clear depiction of what a prisoner ACTUALLY does (or doesn't do) while behind bars. Here is a video I found which depicts a "Day in the Life" of an American prisoner.
A lot of what we have been talking about on our blog is how flawed the American prison system is, and how some other prison systems, like the open system may be a more effective method of disciplining criminals. But what other methods are there out there? China has a surprisingly low number of criminals, especially in a country as large as China is. Despite having a population that is 400% that of the United States, China has less than 75% the number of prisoners that the US does. They also have much fewer prisoners returning to prison after their release. In the US, 52% of prisoners released will be back in prison within 10 years, while the Chinese government reports that that number is generally closer to 6-8%. But how has the Chinese justice system achieved such incredible numbers? Their system puts a much higher emphasis on capital punishment than most other countries. The Washington Post reported in 2008 that China executed 5000-6000 people, according to the Chinese humanitarian group Dui Hua Foundation. That is thirty times the number of executed prisoners in the United States that same year (42). This Chinese system obviously works incredibly well, however is it a solution that is worth pursuing? The link to that Washington Post article can be found here.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122302795.html
1. www.prisonstudies.org 2. https://www.salve.edu/sites/default/files/filesfield/documents/Incarceration_and_Recidivism.pdf http://www.prisonstudies.org/ 3. http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/criminal/8-2.htm Here is an interesting video where I found some surprising facts about American Prisons. There are a few more facts listed below the video, a couple of which are also stated in the video, however, most of them are not. Nine Facts You Probably Didn't Know:
According to Institute of Justice the average USA inmate in 2010 cost $31,286. In the study they also found the average inmate per state. Looking at the data there is some eye-popping numbers. The cheapest average annual cost per inmate is $14,603 from Kentucky and the most expensive is $60,076 from New York. Land is more expensive in New York than Kentucky and that can make a difference in the cost of housing an inmate but not by almost $45,000. If the State of New York cut back their average annual cost per inmate to $40,000 they would be saving about 1.19 billion dollars a year. They could use this money for education or even rehabilitation in the prison system. One of the biggest reasons for not cutting back is the prisons might be cutting back the security of the inmates. My questions would be what is a way to cut back cost without losing security and should every state pay the same amount of money per inmate? http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/price-of-prisons-updated-version-021914.pdf Based on responses the previous "Prison versus Rehabilitation" post, it is clear that this is a very split issue. One thing that someone mentioned was that all prisoners can be rehabilitated if they committed to doing so. This brings up a really important part of the issue--how do do know if someone is committed to their own rehabilitation or not? Some of the worst criminals are very capable of hiding their true selves and pretending to be someone else. The serial killers who evade police for the longest are often the best at seeming as if they fit into normal society. Often after serial killers are caught, neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family are surprised to hear that this person they know could do such horrible things. (If you would like to read an article about 10 cases in which this was the case, click here.) So, if some criminals are this good at masking their true intentions, how can you be sure that they are really committed or even want to be rehabilitated to fit into normal society? What's to say they aren't just faking it in order to be released from prison and continue committing such crimes? Another interesting opinion that people seemed to have, was that anyone who murders should not have the chance to be rehabilitated and should stay in prison. However, should that really be true for everyone? What about accidental death--like if you were driving and someone suddenly ran out into the middle of the street? It may not have been intentional but sometimes people may be charged some form of murder, so is it true that such people shouldn't have a chance to be rehabilitated either? There is a gray area, so where do you draw the line? Are there some forms of murder that people can be rehabilitated for (such as accidental or other unintentional crimes--perhaps something like unintentionally feeding someone a food that they are allergic to, or triggering some sort of seizure in someone that kills them)? (People are not charged for such offenses very often but occasionally it does happen that people are charged with some form or degree of murder.) Another important thing to realize is that the justice system is not perfect, and people are sometimes wrongly convicted of crimes. This in itself is bad enough but what if they are then forced to serve in prison, rather than go to rehabilitation facilities with people who actually committed crimes? It all comes back to this question: how do you determine who is capable of being rehabilitated? Recently there has been skepticism on whether or not a prisoners could be rehabilitated back into modern society after being locked behind bars for such a long time. The article I will link below has a very interesting 8 minute video clip on some prison statistics, but more importantly two programs that are trying to rehabilitate prisoners to prepare them for normal society. In this video they will examine one system that is integrated outside of the prison and one system that is integrated inside of the prisons. Do you think this is an effective way of helping prisoners? Do you think it would be smart to expand this to all prisons nationwide instead of just in Illinois? The link for the article is here.
The other day I read an interesting article on the BCC News website called “Can serial killers be rehabilitated?” It got me thinking about prison rehabilitation, and more specifically I came to the question, what crimes should people be imprisoned for versus what crimes should people be sent to rehabilitation facilities for? There are a couple of sides to this complex issue. One argument is that prisons do not allow people to reenter society from a good starting point (assuming they are not serving a life sentence). Another side is that people can become productive members of society with rehabilitation. Yet another side argues that rehabilitation does not work on all people. Moreover, others argue that if you do the crime you've got to do the prison time. There are a number of questions that arise with this controversial issue:
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