The US Prison System: A Broken System

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A Broken System
Imagine a place where a person cannot exercise free will. A place surrounded by anger and frustration. A place where one loses autonomy and gains a sense of hopelessness. A place that separates a person from everything and everyone they care about. Imagine being in prison. From the 1970s to the present, the US prison system has focused on punishing prisoners and making sure that they receive justice for their actions. Prior to that time, the goal of prison was to rehabilitate them and ensure a positive reentry back into society (Haney 78). Society has overlooked the faults in our prison system today. The present means of responding to criminal behavior has proven to have many detrimental effects. The US prison system …show more content…
Deputy Director of Prisons Research Center, Ben Crewe, said, “The social roles available to prisoners were defined by the needs of the environment: the need to cope with sexual and material deprivation, to recapture social status, to claw back some autonomy and to ensure one’s personal safety” (Crewe 1978). The transition to prison requires a loss in many things that make people human. A change in the environment forces a change in behavior in relation to the new environment. Societal needs have switched to institutional needs. The present means of punishing criminals drastically changes a person’s sense of self and how they interact with their environment. Stripping away a person’s humanity further separates that person from the rest of society. How can we expect for prisoners to adhere to the social norms made by society if we engrain in them a whole new set of …show more content…
One benefit that would stem from this transition would be a reduction in recidivism rates. Recidivism rates are the rates which prisoners that have been released into society will return back to prison. Leader Dogs for the Blind (LDB) is a rehabilitation program that allows for prisoners to train dogs into becoming seeing eye dogs. This program allows for them to feel like they are doing good for the community instead of partaking in disruptive activities. The recidivism rate is about 50% in the US and the recidivism rate at the prison that uses the LDB program is about 11% to 13% (Leader Dogs). This program proves to be a success. It shows that the present way of dealing with criminals seems to predict a detrimental future and that one program can make a huge difference in generating success. It allows for prisoners to learn valuable skills that will carry on to their lives outside of prison. This in turn reduces the recidivism rate because the prisoners are exposed to conditions that encourage positive
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