Rehabilitation Case

Rehabilitation is the restoration of someone to a useful place in society. There are various forms of rehabilitation. For felony offenders this can be helpful in various ways. In many cases, rehabilitation has shaped felons into better people. The programs focus on their personalities through therapeutic activities. Felons in rehabilitation will learn to adapt in society by gaining academic and trade skills. It will find offenders employment, which gives them a secure role in the community and a sense of purpose. It also helps prevent these felons from committing crimes in the future. Rehabilitation for felony offenders will help better society.

Prison is a more than a place people go merely for punishment. The criminal justice system has four objectives they wish to accomplish through prisons. They are designed for punishment, incarceration, rehabilitation, and deterrence. Many prisons don't focus on these four objectives, especially rehabilitation. Prisons implementing affective rehabilitation will see changes in their inmates. These changes will also be reflected when they are released.

Punishment is what people are faced with in reactions to their behavior. Incarceration accounts for the time in a certain facility one has to face. Rehabilitation focuses on bettering the person. Through proper rehabilitation, deterrence from committing crimes is seen. Many people tend to jump over this idea and only associate prison with incarceration. According to the author of Are Prison's Obsolete?, "The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers" (Davis 16). Not focusing on the transformation of the felon while in prison can lead to consistency in their corruptive behavior. This cancels out the possibility of deterrence in the future. It also puts a halt on communities prospering.

When people are released from jail and return in the next few years it is known as recidivism. Statistics show that people who complete rehabilitation programs are less likely to return to prison. According to studies done by the Justice Center- The Council of States Government, rehabilitation decreased the rate of recidivism in 2007 from 24 percent to 11 percent. By reducing the amount of prisoners being sent back to jail these programs are seen very beneficial to expenses. It also provides an increase in public safety.

The main types of rehabilitation seen in prisons are drug therapy and psychological counseling. Drug therapy is specifically designed for felons who abused the use of drugs. Psychological counseling is for offenders who grew up in abusive homes or maybe were the abusers themselves. Although these are key types of rehabilitation it fits for a wide range of convicts. Many people who were abused when they were younger see violence as a normal emotion. Often times they end up beating or killing loved ones or random people. We see these actions in murders and sexual offenders. Through these programs inmates are able to focus on the purpose behind their actions. [They are able to work on many exercises that involve psycho-education which is the study of cognitive behavior which focuses on why people react to certain things. It also focuses on motivational interviewing techniques that provide a more collaborative, respectful approach than authoritative. Through focusing on these types of studies felons are able to better understand why they acted or reacted in a certain way and therefore fill more in control of their actions in the future] (Miceli 6).

Rehabilitation's main focus is to improve a convicted felon's life. Once a person is labeled as an "ex-con" they are less likely to find a job. [Researchers identified this with the deterioration in "human capital." This human capital comes from on-the-job experience in dealing with factors such as punctuality and customer service.