Introduction
The United States has been credited to be among the countries in the world that have an advanced and elaborate criminal justice system. The systems have evolved over time to encompass the various stages through which the state dispenses justice and maintain order in the society. The correctional system is a subset of that system, mainly tasked with the duty to discharge responsibilities of monitoring and maintenance of the incarcerations and the related programs. There exists a debate within the criminal justice system as well as in the eyes of the American citizens on the dispensation of punishment and rehabilitation in the system. The debate is explicit as there exists evidence to support both the punishment as well as the importance of rehabilitation. A far more debate rises in the question whether the correctional facilities that exist within the systems are a stage for punishment or rehabilitation. Therefore, this paper will strive to discuss the degree at which punishment is applied within the programs of the correctional system. Similarly, the paper will discuss the dedication of the correctional programs to the rehabilitation of offenders with the aim of reintegration to the society.
The United States correctional system
The United States correctional system exists in conjunction with the criminal justice system in the country. The correctional system is among the oldest systems in the United States having been established to ensure the dispensation of justice and punishment and rehabilitation of offenders. The history of correctional systems goes far back to the ancient civilizations in human history. The idea was driven by the need to punish or exclude those who do not conform to the societal standards or those that openly disregard the socialization rules set by the society. The correctional system is as old as the country itself. There being offenders of the law, the correctional system gained its objective to punish and exempt the offenders from the society(Reichel, 2002). However, the system has evolved significantly due to the various considerations and development within the society on the view of key issues that drive the system.
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The correctional system on its face value has been credited in the monitoring and maintenance of prison systems in the United States. However, the system has been expanded to include various programs outside the prison facilities that are aimed to incorporate the judgments made to offenders that do not warrant incarceration. Therefore, alternative programs outside the prison have been established to incorporate such changes. There are various approaches that the correctional system uses to dispense its duties; that is punishment and rehabilitation. Both approaches are applied in the system, however, depending on which program they are used, there is a conflicting degree of acceptance that the society allocates to each approach. However, both approaches have various degrees of effectiveness and failure in the system. It’s imperative therefore to understand that the discourse that exists is on whether both approaches are aimed to reintegrate the inmates as well as the offenders back to the society(Maruna and Immarigeon, 2013). The discourse is apparent due to a large number of people that are subject to the correctional system to the tune of 1.2million people. The number makes the United States be among the countries that have the highest number of people in its correctional system.
Incarceration programs
Incarceration is part of the correctional system that involves the detention and lockup of inmates who have been found guilty by the criminal justice system. Therefore, the correctional system has expanded to include facilities such as jails, prisons as well as solitary confinements. The names of these facilities although on several occasions are used interdorm; they have a different degree of applicability and function in the correctional system. Therefore, individuals in the different facilities are assigned depending on nature through which they are booked into the system.
Therein, jails in this system are defined as facilities within the correctional system that are used for the containment of individuals suspected of crimes. Therefore, individuals in the facilities are not necessarily guilty or convicted of any crime. Some or most are held at the facility while awaiting trial in the courts. Those among them not found guilty are released back to the society by order of the court. Prisons, on the other hand, are facilities designed to hold convicted felons. The facilities are established to deliver punishment as dictated by the judgment passed by the court as well facilitate reform to the inmates. The facilities are designed with various levels that denote the degree by which individuals convicted of various crimes are categorized depending on the severity of their crimes. Therefore, they range from minimum level to high-level security classification. Solitary confinement facilities exist within the prisons when there is a determination that a prisoner has become a danger to himself as well as others(Lipsey and Cullen, 2007). Therefore, such inmates are isolated in separate cells that are independent of the central prison to prevent communication.
Due to the widespread of crime in the United States, punishment is used within the incarceration facilities as a deterrent factor for criminal behavior. Nonetheless, it exists to teach the convicted individuals the value of conformity to the set rules and regulations. In most cases, castigation is conveyed in the system through the period that an individual is locked up. The aim of this punishment by separation from the society presents the inmate with the opportunity to identify the value of abiding by the societal norms. Other forms of punishments that have been used alongside the sentenced years in the United States is hard labor and in the most severe cases death. However, punishment has been identified to have little effect to most inmates in adjusting their behavior to the better(Clear and Frost, 2015). For instance, most of the prisoners who leave the American prisons end up being convicted of other crimes and are thrown back in prison. Similarly, the presences of inmates who have committed several crimes in the prisons have acted as an area where convicted individuals can expand their criminal enterprise.
The incarceration facilities also include rehabilitation programs within that are used to model the behavior of inmates within the facilities. The intention of these sequences is to ensure that the individuals in the facilities have an equal chance to mend their behavior and become productive members of the society. For instance, the prisons within the United States offer prisoners with the chance to better themselves with education and valuable skills applicable in the society. Other programs are aimed to modify inmate behavior through active participation in sports or other interactive activities. More recently, the correctional system has introduced therapy for inmates who wish actively work on their psychological issues and hardships constructively (Andrews and Bonta, 2010). However, the effectiveness of these programs is pinned on the perceived cooperation and commitment of inmates. Therein, the several factors within the facilities such as overpopulation limit accessibility and efficiency of such programs.
Community supervision
Incarceration is not the only tool used by the United States correctional system to deal with individuals in the society who breaks the law. Community supervision was established in the country to act in complementary as well as an alternative to incarceration. In cognisant that some laws broken do not warrant the severity of sentencing that is allocated to prison standards, there was a need to have a solution. Community supervision is aimed in the system to encompass rehabilitation programs that are in aid of released convicted felons as well as petty offenders. The program nonetheless contains some aspects of punishment that contain consequences that individuals within the system are supposed to suffer. Therein, being in complementary of incarceration, it acts as a transition program for individuals serving sentences within the system with the aim of reintegration to the society.
Several programs are contained therein that denote the various stages through which rehabilitation and reintegration take place. The programs include parole, probation and recidivism and community service. Parole program represents the program through which inmates who have demonstrated good behavior in the prisons are released conditionally. The program works in that the released person will acquire freedom within the limited regulations specified by the law. Probation, on the other hand, is a substitute to imprisonment where a convicted offender maintains some level of freedom and liberty as determined by the court. The terms of freedom may resemble those of parolees, and they exist on the condition that they maintain a level of behavior that is by the standards of the rules or the existing social norms. Recidivism is a term used in the correctional system to denote the situation where convicted felons revisit and fall back to criminal behavior(Cullen and Jonson, 2014). The phenomenon is facilitated by various factors within the society such as discrimination of the convicted felons or the predisposition to violence among others.
Community supervision is praised due to the aim at which its geared towards the reintegration and rehabilitation of the convicted offenders. The program acts in independence to ensure the survival or maintenance of prosocial behavior of the released persons from prisons. For instance, in some cases, the prescribed condition that individual in the program are to report to a psychologist officer. The programs have its objectives set on the guarantee of the mental and psychological health of the individual as they reintegrate back into the society. Similarly, the program is also aimed to ensure that the individuals can deal with life challenges without resulting in criminal behavior (Clear and Frost, 2015). Other programs such as supervision and monitoring of activities of the offenders on probation are aimed at ensuring the conformity of rules and regulations laid out by the law.
Nonetheless, the rehabilitation capacity of community supervision is questioned due to the recidivism of convicted felons. Their program is severely crippled by several factors that exist within the society that works against the success and effectiveness of the program. For instance, insufficient resources in the correctional system to adequately cover the basis of the programs are a huge setback. Secondly, individuals within the programs are not separated from factors or the issues that convicted them of committing crimes (Lipsey, and Cullen, 2007). Therein, recidivism increases by these challenges of discrimination, unemployment as well as frustrations.
Conclusions
The American correctional system is exceptional to the efforts undertaken by the government as well as the society to improve the functions of the system and the facilities within. Therein, the application of punishment and rehabilitation can be identified in all the facilities and programs within the system. It’s imperative to note. Therefore, both approaches of punishment and rehabilitation are not used in isolation. They exist in complementary to each other. However, there exist tremendous challenges within the United States correctional system that massively frustrate the rehabilitation efforts implemented in the system. For instance, insufficient funds have been cited as among the factors that have contributed to the inefficiency of such programs. Therefore, punishment has been sorted as an alternative that within the system and therefore widely implemented within the budget constraints of the correctional system.
References
Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2010). Rehabilitating criminal justice policy and practice. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law , 16 (1), 39.
Clear, T. R., & Frost, N. A. (2015). The punishment is imperative: The rise and failure of mass incarceration in America . NYU Press.
Cullen, F. T., & Jonson, C. L. (2014). Labeling theory and correctional rehabilitation: Beyond unanticipated consequences. Labeling theory: Empirical tests , 63-88.
Lipsey, M. W., & Cullen, F. T. (2007). The effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation: A review of systematic reviews. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. , 3 , 297-320.
Maruna, S., & Immarigeon, R. (Eds.). (2013). After crime and punishment . Routledge.
Reichel, P. L. (2002). Comparative criminal justice systems: A topical approach . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
