Prison Reforms Essay Example

The US prison population count ranges at 2.3 million people, who are distributed in the current 901 juvenile prisons, 102 federal prisons, 3,163 local jails, and 1,719 state prisons in 2017 (Rabuy, 2018). This presents a significant part of societal correction agent in the country, which ought to be handled with care, elaborate, and functional system. However, currently, the prison system has failed to eliminate social evils in the country, which was its reason for establishment. This has been attributed to the failure and inefficiency of the prison system in the country. Therefore, there is a need to reform the prison system due to factors such as the inefficiency of private prisons, the lack of rehabilitative motive, and the impact they have on parenting in society.

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The use of private prisons has proven to be ineffective in serving the primary purpose of acclimatizing the prisoners. This form of imprisonment has turned out to be a business opportunity, where dominant firms can buy labour at cheaper costs thus increasing their profits. This has led to the stakeholders running them with a lack of safety measures and efficiency focuses. For instance, the Kingsman minimum/medium prison saw three murder prisoners escape due to lack of adequate profiling (The Economist, 2018). The Additionally, the Management Training Corporation's patrons, admitted that the firm did not conduct sufficient patrols and extensive visitor screening, which were identified as the main causes of the escapes. Thus, this indicates the inefficiency of these systems, thus warranting their abolishment.

The nation's prisons have not incorporated efficient rehabilitation systems and strategies. The main reason for the establishment of prisons is to ensure that the prisoners are remodelled and taught essential values and behaviour to enable them to become productive members of the society (The Economist, 2018). However, the system adopted in the US's jail system is more of punishment rather than rehabilitation. This can be evidenced by the rising crime rate in the society, which is seven times France's prison population, fifteen times than in Japan, and eleven times as much as in the Netherlands. In other instances, petty crimes such as pickpocketers are handed the same sentence as murderers. This, therefore, exhibits a lack of rehabilitative motive in the system, thus the need for reforms.

Moreover, the brutality prevailing in prisons poses direct influence towards how the culprits raise their children in the society. According to Rabuy (2018), the brutality experience in the jails as a method of punishment is transferred to the community, since such individuals grow up identifying brutality and punishment as the only approach to correct someone. Hence, they tend to apply the same to their children and colleagues, thus establishing a demolishing culture rather than a constructive one, which utilizes friendlier correctional methods. Therefore, this represents the current tends to bring more harm to the society in the form of approach transfer, thus indicating the need for reforms.

However, proponents against the reforms argue that prisons hold wrong-doers, who cause harm to the society, thus making it friendlier will reduce its meaning. This cannot hold any ground since the primary purpose for the establishment of prisons is to rehabilitate the criminals and turn them into productive members of the society (The Economist, 2018). Therefore, making their survival hard will only harden the criminals and turn them to be more dangerous than before.

In conclusion, there is the need to reform the prison system due to factors such as inefficiency of private prisons, lack of rehabilitative motive, and the impact they have on parenting in the society. For instance, the private prisons have turned to a business-oriented field with fewer regulations and enforcement, while the prisons have turned to punish more than rehabilitate. Moreover, the transfer effect tends to bring brutality experience in prisons back to the parenting life, thus leading to dictatorial parenting, thus the need for reforms.

References

Rabuy, P. (2018). Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2017. Retrieved from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2017.html.

The Economist. (2018). America's prisons are failing. Here's how to make them work. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/27/americas-prisons-are-failing.-heres-how-to-make-them-work.