In their desire for revenge, many people forget that most prisoners are released and need to re-enter society. As such, prison needs to be about making sure the people, when released, do not re-offend and become a further drain on society.

Once, my van got broken into in an attempt to steal it. As it turned out, this was part of a minor crime wave. The justice system was in a "get tough on juvenile crime" mood, and shipped the local young delinquents off to prison. In prison, the young delinquents learned how to break into cars properly. They learned how not to leave evidence, which types of cars (vans) to target, and how to hot-wire the cars and vans. The cops never caught the kids that broke into my car.

Do we really want prisoners to exit prison as well trained criminals? or as potentially productive members of society?

As a society, it is easy to adopt the "get tough on crime" mantra. However, in the end, it was the "get tough on crime" mantra that resulted in my car getting broken into and smashed up.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

• Better Criminals or Better Rehabilitation? - Authored by: Wol on Wednesday, June 05 2013 @ 10:45 AM EDT