Corrections

Rehabilitation Paper

Lucero Santana

CJA/234

May 13, 2013

Mr. Chavarria

Rehabilitation Paper

Rehabilitation, part of society agrees it is a far better method than retribution and others believe it is a soft side of the criminal justice system; showing a side of weakness. This is an issue that can be traced back to the beginning of prisons. Since then, the government has not been able to prioritize and focus on a certain goal; bouncing back from retribution to incapacitation to rehabilitation and back to retribution. There is a lot of controversy surrounding these goals but rehabilitation being the most controversial of the bunch. See back then, forms of punishment range from torture, public humiliation to flogging and whipping; pretty barbaric especially when the punishment did not fit the crime. Surprisingly, the rationale to these methods were not to be plain barbaric but to make the experience unpleasant that offenders will not want to commit a new crime and prevent them from returning to prison. Although these punishments showed otherwise, these forms of punishments had some kind of purpose to them. On the other hand, in a more humane and perhaps better method, rehabilitation can also help with preventing crime too. By trying to help them to be a better fit to society, rehabilitative offenders might be less likely to commit new crimes.

Rehabilitative punishment was intended to reform a convict so that they can lead a productive life free from crime. They try to accomplish this by curing them from their criminal behavior; which is treated as a disease (Smith, N., n.d.). Although the ideal concept of punishment is to make them suffer for their crimes, in reality most offenders suffer from mental and physical illness, drug addiction, and limited opportunities for economic success (Smith, N., n.d.). Therefore, by simply incarcerating them and releasing them once they pay their debt to society, the offender will most likely to reoffend. Rehabilitation was...