The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is an important part of the judicial system. It is where convicted persons serve their sentence and have their behavior corrected. It has evolved from a storage house for people unwanted in our society into a professional system that is meant to rehabilitate inmates readying them to re-enter society. We hope that their newly learned skills allow them to work, cope with problems, and avoid committing anymore crimes.
The CDCR has developed programs that work with the inmates to correct their poor behavior (Rehabilitation). There are programs that allow the inmates to have sessions with psychiatrists who try to help the inmate learn to control their behavior and understand their triggers. Another program that exists helps to teach inmates job skills allowing them to have a career when they leave prison. Other programs help the inmates further their education or obtain their GEDs while incarcerated.
These programs have slowly diminished over time leaving the CDCR missing its R. Funding has become more difficult to find for these programs in the ever increasing prison population. Laws such as three strikes have contributed to the overcrowded prisons in California. More inmates requires more spending on Corrections Officers, meals, medications, and other expenses. The suffering economy and the poor budgeting skills of the California Government have caused the prison system to cut its rehabilitation programs, so it can fund the parts of the prisons that it needs to, in order to follow the laws.
This failure of the system has allowed for a downward spiral of the CDCR. The prisoners are being released without job skills or coping skills necessary to succeed in society. They find themselves exiting prison into a society with a high unemployment rate and have a hard time finding work. They commit another crime because they are unable to properly blend back into society and find themselves back in prison. Their sentences are longer which costs the state more money and makes the financial situation even worse.
The national average sixty-seven percent recidivism rate means that what we are doing isn’t working. What is next to improve this situation, is we need to look at the money that we are spending to keep these inmates locked away from society and think of better ways to spend it. If the rehabilitation programs that we were using were not providing results, then we need to look at new ones. One good example of why rehabilitation is an important tool is in the Chicago Justice System. They have a boot camp for offenders where the inmates not only serve out their sentence, but they are taught discipline and green job skills. They are taking a new rising job market and training their inmates to be ready to enter as skilled employees. The recidivism rate of those that attend the camp is thirty percent compared the national average (NY Times 2011). This is just one of several examples of rehabilitation programs that have a lower reoffending rate. Although the statistics of the programs may be slightly skewed because they normally do not accept the more serious offenders, they still have a higher success rate than simple incarceration. Another example of a way that we can better spend our money is found in this short clip from the movie “Waiting for Superman”.
The prison system is not a broken system but it is in need of change. Heraclitus of Ephesus said, “The only constant in life is change”. Change can bring about good and bad things but it is necessary to adapt. A company would not stay in business long if it was producing products that failed and were sent back for repairs sixty seven percent of the time. The prison system is not responsible for rehabilitating ever person that enters, but it is in everyone’s best interest if they are given the chance to try.
Sources:
Terry, Don. (Sept. 17, 2011). An Urban Garden Prepares Inmates for Green-Collar Jobs NY Times online. Accessed Sept 20, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/an-urban-garden-prepares-inmates-for-green-collar-jobs.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=recidivism&st=cse&scp=3
Guggenheim, Davis. (2010). Waiting for Superman. Documentary. Accessed Sept. 19, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1VX1apvagA
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ReplyDeleteThis is a major concern; especially here in California. Most offenders are going to be returned to society at some point and the populace is depending on the correctional system to "correct" their problems. However in a "tough on crime" society we have moved more toward the punitive side of things.
ReplyDeleteLet's face it; we would rather lock up the bad guys and throw away the key then spend any real time on them. For some criminals this holds true. People who commit heinous crimes against others, rehabilitation just isn't an options. However I think we lump all criminals in the same category. They didn't follow the rules, we are, so why should we care about them?
I like the clip that you included because we do spend so much on housing inmates in this revolving door system; a system in which efficiency is measured by recidivism. I found the video on Netflix and I am going to watch it soon. Thanks for a good blog.
We do put a lot of emphasis on locking up the bad guy and throwing away the key. The problem is that the key is not thrown away and the offender will be back in our society at some point, granted there are life sentence. We are releasing these offenders with no rehabilitation efforts and they are now better trained and educated in the area of crime. They just came from years in a prison environment where they had to be even more tough and ruthless to avoid problems. Now they are back with the community bigger, badder, and more prepared than when they went in. Again, this is not always the case but it is a situation where one case is one too many.
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