The government has a legal right to protect all citizens and to ensure that there is justice in society. Several debates regarding providing rehabilitation to criminals have resurfaced within the nation. Some argue that criminal offenders should receive rehabilitation whereas others say that they should receive punishment. Community corrections such as parole and probation exist as imprisonment alternatives to lawbreakers who do not threaten the public safety of citizens. Today, the issue of rehabilitation continues to be a debate within the community as some individuals are for rehabilitation whereas others are against it. The soundness of both parties has made it hard to come to one conclusion.
Reasons for Rehabilitation
Arguments for rehabilitation argue that punishment is only useful in short-term behavior change and its efficiency depends on specific conditions in place. Punishment only works if it is applied to maximum intensity to work and if it is predictable. Failure to meet these conditions, the effects of punishment would be tolerance and temporary impact. If an individual believes that they will get away from punishment after a given period, they will not be discouraged from committing a crime. Furthermore, punishment will not work for those individuals with too much emotion or psychological disorder, and who worry less about the consequences of their behaviors (Chan, 2017). Therefore, such people and situations necessitate rehabilitation to help criminal offenders to change.
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Reported cases of negative change as a result of the prison environment have been reported. Some individuals go to prison with the hope of reforming, but come out as hardened criminals because of unfavorable conditions there (Fassin, 2017). For instance, when drug peddlers or alcohol addicts go to prison for committing a minor offense under the influences, most come back as hardened drug addicts. In the end, the punishment imposed on the offenders mean little and only makes them worse as they may go back and forth to prison. In prison, high-risk offenders have maximum contact with low-risk offenders making it hard to transform them. In this case, punishment is not the best way to go for criminal offenders; hence rehabilitation works best.
Reasons against Rehabilitation
John Rawls’ theory of justice provides that the first responsibility of the justice system is to promote justice and keep criminals from harming civilians. Rawls states that the justice system is not responsible for assisting criminals to get a good job and have a good life (Buchanan, 2017). An individual who commits a crime should receive fair judgment and punishment for their deeds. Therefore, a penalty is a tool that teaches criminals and makes them recognize that their deeds are wrong and should be used to reduce crime rates.
If rehabilitation is provided to all offenders, there is a higher probability that criminal offenses will increase. Individuals will continue committing a crime knowing that they will not be apprehended but instead will get away with it (Buchanan, 2017). Furthermore, this would portray a picture that criminals get rewarded instead of being punished because they will receive free education, learn a trade, and receive help in finding a job. In the end, individuals will feel motivated to commit a crime. In this case, providing justice and fair punishment will deter individuals from committing a crime for fear of the law, unlike a rehabilitation which will encourage offenses.
Opinion
The legal right should not be given to all offenders, but rather to some circumstances. Therefore, there should be a combination of punishment and rehabilitation in society. Minor criminal offenders should have a legal right to recovery for offenses. For a penalty to be effective in bringing control, it should be immediate because delaying punishment provides offenders with a chance to worsen their behaviors.
Currently, law enforcement provides minor forms of punishment like parole and probation to criminal offenders to help them be law-abiding citizens. These minor punishments are available for lawbreakers, who are not a threat to public safety. Under probation, criminal offenders are placed under the supervision of the court whereas parole is meant to rehabilitate former prisoners (Polinsky & Riskind, 2017). Research has shown that less than half the number parolees complete their probation without escaping, perpetrating a new offense, or infriging provisions of release, showing that most of them go to prison. Furthermore, research conducted in 2005 showed that approximately a third of prison admissions are as a result of parole violators (Robinson, 2005). Therefore, this indicates that using punishment and rehabilitation work differently on different individuals or offenders.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the justice system has the task of providing justice in society and ensuring that criminals do not cause harm to innocent, law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, each citizen, including criminals, is entitled to the legal right to treatment. The debate regarding punishment and rehabilitation on criminal offenders is a major concern today. Arguments point out that there is a need to balance between the two depending on the circumstances surrounding an offense or offender. The path that the justice system chooses to help an individual to be a law-abiding citizen works differently for various individuals.
References
Buchanan, A. (2017). A critical introduction to Rawls’ theory of justice. In Distributive Justice (pp. 175-211). Routledge.
Chan, S. (2017). 6 Offender rehabilitation. Psycho-Criminological Perspective of Criminal Justice in Asia: Research and Practices in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beyond , 89.
Fassin, D. (2017). Prison worlds: An ethnography of the carceral condition . John Wiley & Sons.
Polinsky, A. M., & Riskind, P. N. (2017). Deterrence and the Optimal Use of Prison, Parole, and Probation (No. w23436). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Robinson, J. A. (2005). The relationship between parole and recidivism in the criminal justice system. McNair Scholars Journal , 9 (1), 12.
