Policy Dilemma in Rehabilitation and Corrections System

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Policy Dilemma in Rehabilitation and Corrections Systems
One of the most common ways of punishing societal vices is by imprisonment. The national law recognizes crimes of all extents from the simple pick pocketing to gruesome murders and has stipulated appropriate punishments for each crime. Particularly incarceration serves a wholesome purpose of penalizing offenders who serve weeks, months, years or even life imprisonments depending on the nature of their crimes. The penal system is meant to be correctional but this result is not always achieved. Often, we see ex-convicts going back to their original crimes or even upgrading to far more gruesome acts just after leaving prisons. This brings to table the debate of whether the prisons are doing their job well and what adjustments need to be done to ensure that they serve their intended purposes. This paper will analyze and critique the arguments of James Gilligan, MD, a forensic psychiatrist, who wrote recommendations on how to make prisons effective and less costly. In addition it will draw conclusions in defense or opposition of these sentiments.
Gilligan’s statements
I will examine three of Gilligan’s arguments for the purpose of analysis in this paper. First, Gilligan indicates that prisons are meant to be restraint centers where offenders are kept from causing harm to themselves or others. He contends that in order to change behavior, people who are dangerous to themselves or other people are to be kept in enclosures and helped to change their behaviors. The final objective here is to release them back to the society with new characters, beliefs and social values. He further argues that before we can effectively change the prison system, there is need to differentiate between punishing people and restraining people. In his opinion punishment is vengeful and meant to teach a lesson and for this reason is not a beneficial role of the penal system. He advocates for restraint rather than punishment for prisoners.
Secondly, he proposes the establishment of Anti-prison system. In his words, this describes home-like residences where prisoners live in a community system different from the normal homes of civilians by the addition of security and safe-locking. Furthermore, he believes that the since the current prisons are performing poorly, they should be all torn down and replaced with his proposed system. He compares the prisons with other American institutions and indicates that if they were performing as bad as the prisons, they would all be torn down. He statistically illustrates how two thirds of prisoners are taken back to prison in a period of three years after they had completed their initial sentence.
He believes his new idea would cause no harm to Americans as they would be setting an example for the convicts to follow. Moreover, the system will incorporate normal civilian-like operations such as provision of education, drug abuse rehabilitation, dental care, psychotherapy and medical attention. In his opinion, the best way to prevent recidivism is by providing opportunities to convicts to improve themselves for instance through education and attaining college degrees while in prison. The best way to mend bad behavior is by treating prisoners in exactly the same way as other civilians are treated and exposing them to similar conditions, opportunities and respect. Gilligan believes that to be sure that the prisoners would show respect and kindness when returned to the community; we have to treat them in a similar way.
Finally, Gilligan recommends that a re-educational program is the future for prisons in America. He argues that the program will saves taxpayers money in addition to ensuring public safety after the convicts are released back to the community. In his words, even as little time as four months in the program has proven to have significant effect on the prisoner’s behaviors. Furthermore he contends that results from his research with a colleague proved a reduction of violence in the San Francisco jail to zero and the frequency of re-imprisonment for violence was reduced by 83%. All this was as a result of introduction of the intensive program in the correctional center.
Analysis of practicality and accuracy of Gilligan’s statements
First, Gilligan believes that the only rational role of prisoners is to provide restraint for criminal offenders. I believe this is inaccurate more so because the statement rules out some other major functions of the correctional system in the US. Prisons serve other purposes with the main ones being rehabilitation, retribution, deterrence and incapacitation. Since their establishment, correctional facilities have majorly been aimed at serving these major purposes and ruling them all out would be impractical.
Secondly, the anti- prison system that is proposed by Gilligan is impractical since it would mean a complete turn-around of the century long system of operations in the facilities. It is impractical to...