What is Justice?

I am currently an undergraduate at Syracuse University, and this semester I will be doing an internship with the Writing Program, at Auburn State Prison. In this internship I will be tutoring inmates to get their GEDs. I am extremely excited about this opportunity and hope to learn and grow immensely through this experience. I am truly interested and intrigued by the prison system, and having a better understanding on how prison, and the rehabilitation process works. Rehabilitation is the reason for the prison system; a crime is committed, a person is convicted, and then punished, and during punishment rehabilitation should occur to ensure a successful re-entry into society. So why not become an active ingredient in the actual rehabilitation process? I figured the best way to learn about rehabilitation is being a part of rehabilitation. Programs such as these foster a foundation for successful re-entry back into society for the prisoners, and serve as a means of monitoring growth and a strive to be better on the prisoners part. That is what reform is all about.

The idea of reform within the prison system has been a rollercoaster of punishment versus supervision versus rehabilitation; the debate is ongoing, and there has yet to be definitive evidence to support either technique and or its positive and negative effects of society. In the beginning of the prison system in the US, prisons and punishment mirrored English punishment. In England, prisons were used as a place to house and monitor prisoners until there sentence was served. There were no efforts to reform or provide opportunity to encourage a positive change in prisoners; this continued until the fifteenth century. During the next four centuries the prison system began to take a major turn, and prison became a form of punishment, and not a place to house criminals. Different forms of punishment began to be instated; ideas such as capital punishment for harsher crimes such as murder became more effective within the prison systems during this time. Even though the prison system began to have a more directed form of punishment the new issue was can or does prison serve as an institution to deter criminals? It was during these centuries of reform that the criminal justice system was confronted with the question of being proactive or reactive? Going into the 18th and 19th centuries prisons really took a turn for reform; the idea of rehabilitation first sprang up and making proactive approaches to deterring prisoners from going into prison began. This is an amazing concept, and the reason why I am itching to join the legal system. (Barrows)

Rehabilitation began in the 18th and 19th century but it hasn’t continued to evolve into a positive rehabilitation program today. If the goal the prison system is to rehabilitate encourages a successful re-entry into society why has the re-incarceration/ recidivism rates continued to sky rocket?

In fact the Bureau of Justice states that:

Recidivism

• Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime.
• The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 accounted for nearly 4,877,000 arrest charges over their recorded careers.
• Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide.
• Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense –– 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
• Sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison –– 5.3 percent of sex offenders versus 1.3 percent of non-sex offenders.
  (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics)

Why two centuries after a reform to rehabilitate are 67.5% or inmates being re-incarcerated? There is a need to discover the reasons why re-incarceration rates are so vast. Are programs such as the one I’m participating in deterring inmates from becoming re0incarcerated when they go back into society? Does a GED or a college education for an inmate truly make a difference when they re-enter society? I think that rehabilitation is needed in all prisons, and every person should have a second chance. But if the legal system gives inmates a second chance… will society ever? These are questions I hope to answer through my experience in the prison this semester and through personal research. I believe reform is needed within the legal system, the prison system, and society. The question is how and when are we going to make that change?

Other articles to consider:
1. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200808/when-crime-rates-go-down-recidivism-rates-go
2. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200808/when-crime-rates-go-down-recidivism-rates-go
3. http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc09/htm/iv.v.xviii.htm
4. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/prison.html

Work Cited:

Barrows, Samuel. "Prison Reform". Christian Classics Ethereal Library . September 20, 2009 http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc09/htm/iv.v.xviii.htm.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, "Criminal Offenders Statistics". Bureau of Justice Statistics. September 21, 2009 http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm.