Kesiah Olvera
Janel Spencer
Writing 101S
December 2019
Torture Doesn’t Teach.
Prisons around the United States have four major purposes. These purposes include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. To look more in depth, the goal of these purposes is to ultimately prevent the inmates from committing future crimes, which subsequently leads to reincarceration. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the U.S. only makes up 5% of the world’s population but holds 25% of the world’s prison population. Over 75% of discharged inmates are re-incarcerated within 5 years. With this statistic, it cannot be denied that prisons are not fulfilling their purposes. Prisons focus on torture and punishment and forget all about rehabilitation, which explains this high re-offending rate. I argue that prisons around the U.S. needs to be a place where prisoners are able to rehabilitate, get the help needed and given a second chance. All while they are still being valued as a human and nothing less.
How are we able to change our prison system to make it effective? To start off, we need to recognize the difference between restraint and punishment. When people are a danger to themselves or others, we restrain the individual for our safety and theirs. But this is completely different from inflicting unnecessary pain on the inmate as revenge or to “teach them a lesson.” Generations of research has proved that people, both children and adults, learn by example. Therefore, the only lesson being taught is to inflict pain on others. Instead of restraining and causing pain to these inmates, prisons should still restrain those who are possible harm to self or others and also help them change the only behaviors they know to turn to in troubled scenarios. This way, when they are released, they have knowledge on how to help themselves the right way and less likely to return. After all, that is America’s ultimate goal— to better our citizens and improve our country no matter the circumstance.
Providing rehabilitation for inmates not only offers countless benefits to themselves, but also the community in which the inmate will be released to. There are numerous options for rehabilitation, all which depend on facility, sentence length and offense. One being, providing education programs. Having an education program has proved time and time again to give inmates a second chance. In fact, those who enrolled in the education program were 43% less likely to commit a crime and be reincarcerated within three years then those who didn’t( ). Most of the inmates have not yet received the lowest form of education. When they are able to achieve obtaining either a GED or high school diploma, that alone, is a major confidence boost and more reason to believe in themselves as well as want better. In addition, the inmate education programs cover functional skills. For example those enrolled, or an advantage even more when attempting to find work. Not only because they have an education, but they are also familiar with technology like updated computers as well as the Internet.
WRT101s 