Rehabilitation is a process in which an inmate is given an opportunity to realize her/his offense and also learn how she/he can change the mindset to prevent crime in the future. In other words, we are able to say that rehabilitation is the criminal mind’s soft processing to reintegrate it back to society.
Effectiveness of Rehabilitation in Prisons and the Criminal Justice System
Punishment is only a method of making an inmate pay for the crime committed. However, it will not change his or her behavior. Rehabilitation will ensure that the inmate learns from mistakes and becomes a reformed citizen. Punishment has the goal to serve justice, whereas rehabilitation has a wider objective. It has a goal to improve the overall situation of society by reforming criminals. Punishment has its benefits because it discourages other people from continuing crimes and acts as a deterrent.
Punishments such as death sentences may seem like severe punishments, but they are not really effective in rehabilitating inmates or preventing other people from committing crimes. The inmates who commit very serious crimes such as murder will come from background of rehabilitation so they are going to have been subjected to punishments as a child that reinforces the idea that punishment does not work. Punishment such as imprisonment is able to lead to prison subculture. This is where inmates support crime and criminals, because they are made to feel as if they belong in jail or prison by being deprived of their freedom, being disrespected and being physically punished too.
Rehabilitation has a better opportunity of working as it makes the inmates feel wanted and needed whereas punishment is able to lead them to feel helpless and worthless. Punishing an inmate can cause resentment from the community thus reducing their opportunities of becoming accepted again. Punishing an inmate sets them apart from society, making their integration back into normal life difficult. Also, punishment does not tell the inmate what they did wrong and how to make up for it. Punishment will be able to cause criminals to feel anger towards their victim, society and correctional facility staff.
So, we are able to say that rehabilitation is better because rehabilitation programs are specially designed with help from psychologists and criminologists. Those professionals will understand that punishment alone cannot eradicate crimes thus they design the programs of rehabilitation according to the needs of each individual. Punishments will be able to change an inmate’s attitude in future crimes, however it does not work on all inmates who commit different types of crimes. Also, punishments do not give any explanation of what went wrong or why the crime was committed, therefore it does not prevent other people from committing similar crimes. Punishments are only a way of giving justice to the victims who have already suffered in several ways. Aside from that, punishments also do not tell the inmates how they are able to make up for their crimes by helping other people.
This brings us to the point that rehabilitation is a better option than punishment because rehabilitation would help an inmate become a good citizen and live a normal life. While punishment is only a method of making an inmate pay for the crime committed, it will not be able to change his or her behavior. Rehabilitation will ensure that the inmate learns from their mistakes and becomes a reformed citizen. Punishment purposes to serve justice, while rehabilitation has a wider objective. Rehabilitation purposes to improve the overall situation of society by reforming criminals. Punishments have its benefits because it discourages other people from committing crimes and acts as a deterrent.
Rehabilitation vs Punishment – Pros and Cons You Need to Know
Now, we are going to share information about punishment vs rehabilitation pros and cons so that you are in a better position for understanding both the practices that are allowed in the prisons.
Severity and context of punishment
The ideas of punishment and rehabilitation are similar if we see both those terminologies in the context of Child punishment. We frequently punish our kids in our homes for off-limits behavior, however our goal is not only to punish them but also to realize that such behavior will be able to result in punishment. Similar is the case with the prisons, the goal is to reduce the crime rate through punishment and rehabilitation.
Word and reality
Based on the official prison policy, the prisons are created to rehabilitate the inmates. However, in reality, the harsh prison situations generate more aggressive behavior. The prisons are overcrowded and poorly managed due to aggression taking birth in the minds of the inmates.
In addition, the prison staff’s rude behavior and guards with the inmates and also poor management as well disrespectful behavior of the team is associated with retributive punishment rather than coercive punishment.
Making the example
It is a widespread perception that crime is able to be reduced by setting an example. The idea behind this perception is that once you give punishment to the inmates, it will set an example for himself/herself and other people. Thus, they are going to refrain from violating the law. We do not have to give an argument in favor of this perception. Instead, they argued that a youngster who has committed a crime will be able to be exposed to other professional criminals in the prisons. There are high chances that he/she will become one of them. Therefore, the perception of making an example is wrong. And young criminals must be put in rehabilitation facilities where they are going to be exposed to professional psychologists. Latter will be able to work on their mental health.
Worsening the issue
The retributive punishment is producing more criminals. Thus, the crime rate in society can increase. For instance, when an inmate is released after completing the punishment, she or he will not return as an average law-abiding citizen, instead she or he will have a more criminal mindset.
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