When I was in college, I was given the opportunity to visit death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee and attend a conflict resolution class in which some inmates chose to participate. Eight stood before the class to perform a skit exhibiting what they had learned, and they proceeded to share why they were grateful for the education they received and for the time professors invested in them. They continued to profess their gratitude as we broke into small groups and they told their life stories, detailing their personal transformations through this rehabilitative program.
Although these inmates received education and built on their life skills, many American people who experience incarceration are not as fortunate. Instead, they are subjected to the harsh realities of underpaid labor, brutality, and excessive solitude in the country’s prison system. These conditions don’t help people heal but rather act as a barrier for further progress of individuals convicted of a crime.
Most American prisons currently focus on punishment, not rehabilitation.
Currently, America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with a rate of 698 people incarcerated per 100,000 people in America in 2020. Furthermore, the United States is the only democracy in the world that has no independent authority to monitor liveable prison conditions and uphold minimal standards of health and safety. This low regard for the safety of prisoners suggests that America does not advocate for the lives of convicted people once they are put in prison nor upon their release.
Until the mid-1970s, The United States utilized a rehabilitative approach in order to encourage prisoners reentering society to resolve psychological problems or to develop vocational skills. A turning point occurred when the “tough on crime” mindset crept into policymaking, and punishment became the main focus of prison systems.
Recidivism, in terms of the criminal justice system, is the likelihood that a convicted criminal will reoffend. Among state prisoners released in 2005, 83 percent of those released were rearrested after 9 years. Those who were formerly incarcerated account for 15 to 20 percent of all adult arrests, which means thousands of previously convicted criminals have already done time without “correction.” The current punitive system isn’t reducing crime.
Prisoners incarcerated across the country will experience solitary confinement as punishment, not coming into contact with other people for months or even years. Against their Constitutional rights, inmates are put at risk of being sexually abused, stabbed, and beaten either by guards or by each other. All of these practices decrease physical well-being and increase mental health issues.
Additionally, the harsh reality of prisons follows inmates after their release. We see this in the removal of the right to vote from the formerly incarcerated and in requiring each of them to state criminal history on their applications for employment. Life during and following prison sentences is significantly more difficult for inmates than it should be.
Is rehabilitation possible in America?
The prison education program on Tennessee’s Death Row is not the only rehabilitative program in the country. Various state prisons and jails have education initiatives, with some providing Associates degrees to inmates by the time they are released. If successful rehabilitation programs were implemented across America, the nation could reduce its recidivism rate by 15 to 20 percent.
California has recognized its need to strengthen rehabilitative programs centered around education and substance abuse treatment. Steps to improve and implement rehabilitative programs into prisons include requiring programs to be evidence based, measuring cost-effectiveness of said-programs, targeting programs to the highest-risk and highest-need inmates, utilizing existing resources, and conducting regular oversight of said programs.
These steps are crucial in building a successful rehabilitation program because they consist of proven principles and are targeted to specific offenders. When prisoners learn vocational skills or earn a diploma while behind bars, they are more likely to obtain a job upon release. If prisoners undergo a substance abuse program, they are less likely to depend on substances later. Building a successful rehabilitation program is possible, lawmakers must be convinced it works in order to invest the time and money into it.
Widespread rehabilitative programs in prisons have been proven to work in other countries.
Other countries, such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany, have adopted rehabilitative prison systems. Since 2004, Sweden’s recidivism rate has dropped to around 40 percent, and they were able to close four of the country’s 56 prisons in 2013.
The low-offense prisons in Sweden, for example, appear much like college dorms. Inmates there are assigned contact officers who help them prepare for life in the outside world, and they are even allowed to wear their own clothes. Higher-offense prisons do appear more like American prisons, with steel doors, but they still experience humane treatment within the walls. Though there is some political oversight, criminal justice policies are left to professionals in the field, such as criminologists and psychologists, and rarely enter the political realm.
In the Netherlands and in Germany, similar approaches are taken. Prisoners wear their own clothing, cook their own meals, and prepare for life after prison. Their sole aim of incarceration is not to punish but instead to “enable prisoners to lead a life of social responsibility free of crime upon release.” Inmates are given a sense of privacy because guards knock before they enter, and their toilets are walled. Additionally, they are given regular access to education and therapeutic resources resulting in lower recidivism rates which, like Sweden, are 40 percent.
Overall, these policies treat people who experience incarceration with a sense of humanity that inmates in America do not experience. While there are various aspects of these programs that would not be feasible for the size of the United States, there are valuable ideas that could enable American prisons to fully equip inmates for the departure of prison. In turn, this would better serve society because there would be more active societal participants. American prisons should transition away from strict punishments and towards more rehabilitative practices in order to hold people accountable for crimes committed and give them a chance for a better life upon release..
As the inmates at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution showed my class a few years ago, nobody is beyond the point of redemption. The participants in the program were given a second chance, and they did not waste it.
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Using this in a legal paper for the University of New Mexico School of Law! Thanks so much for a great article. – Luke
This article is not only well-written (providing language that even a layperson or someone with no prior knowledge of the criminal “justice” system can readily understand), factually accurate, clear, and concise all while getting the message across that EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN AND ALL THOSE INVOLVED IN THE “PRISON INDUSTY” so desperately need to hear and heed: OUR CURRENT SYSTEM OF HARSH PUNISHMENT OF OFFENDERS DOES NOT WORK! The recidivism rates speak volumes for themselves! HOW can a country that prides itself on touting the phrase “Land of the FREE and home of the brave” possibly turn a deaf ear to this message? HOW? Because prison’s have become the USA’s new and rising star revenue-generating industry. Today, rather than being “Proud to be and American,” I am conversely APPALED TO BE AN AMERICAN!