Essay Example on Inmates' Rehab: A Crucial Step to Successful Reintegration

Inmates' rehabilitation comes with its weight either on the social or economic perspective. In California State, it is estimated that about 130,000 prisoners are housed. At the end of their sentence, thousands of crooks are free to the community and most of them are likely to be re-incarcerated due to the punishment exposed to them (Tella & Dubra, 2011). Inmates must go through rehabilitation programs that increase the likelihood that offenders lead a productive life after release. The rehabilitation aim at addressing factors that lead to criminal activity.

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Rehabilitation helps prevent recidivism. Most criminals re-offend once released from prison. It is recorded that about 46% of inmates released in 2013 in California were re-incarcerated for a subsequent crime within three years of release. (Sussman, 2015). Rehabilitation program reduces the re-offending. Some factors influence the probability of inmate repeating the offence after the release. The criminal way of thinking and attitudes, values or beliefs can determine whether or not a criminal activity will be repeated. The major criminal risk factors of inmates after release include; antisocial behavior, being disruptive a person will not be able to avoid criminal activity when placed in a high risk environment. Anti-social personality is displayed by impulsiveness, exploitative, aggressiveness and manipulative behavior among victims. The issues include; Criminal thinking, antisocial relationship, family relationship issues, low performance at work or school, low involvement in recreational activities. It is recorded that rehabilitation programs can be designed to address the negative issues faced by inmates (Shoham, 2015). If recovery programs are fruitful at reducing reoffending, they not only reduce criminality but also lead to both indirect and direct economic benefits to a nation. Direct economic benefits include low imprisonment costs since law-breakers will not be re-incarcerated. Indirect advantages could comprise low expenses for community support, as some lawbreakers may benefit from job training that creates them employment, thus lowering the degree of public support required. If rehabilitation curricula are operated successfully, benefits can surpass the costs implication of offering the programs and the nation benefits from net fiscal value.

Additionally to reducing reoffending, recovery programs can suffice related goals, for instance making it easier to manage the convict population securely, cultivating overall prisoner wellbeing, and refining jailbird educational fulfilment. These secondary objectives lead to direct and indirect economic benefits. Managing the inmate population result in fewer inmates needing to be retained in upper-security units, which lessen the number of security staff hence reducing operation costs.

The programs offered in rehabilitation include academic education. The program encompasses adult education, general education, and high school diploma and college programs. Low literacy convicts attend adult education. The programs also include career technical education that focuses on various career sectors such as carpentry, masonry and auto repair. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is another critical program offered. Through, the program offenders change the patterns of behavior that can lead to crime. Cognitive-behavioral therapy addresses rehabilitate needs such as anger management and critical thinking that if left unaddressed, can lead to the likelihood of recidivism. Employment preparation is critical in the program. Their preparation provides skills needed in the workplace, such as job searching techniques, job readiness. The inmates should be taken through the process up to six months before release to prepare their transition back to society. Substance use disorder therapy; this is a program that is offered to help convicts treat their substance use disorders, avoid relapse and effectively reintegrate into society. Inmates using the illegal drug while in prison should be allowed to attend the program. Moreover arts in correction programs are also vital. Arts in correction focuses on deliberating inmates with arts program stretching from theatre to creative writing. Additionally on this list, innovative programming grants should also be offered to victims. Innovative programming grants short term funding supports. The program includes gardening and mentorship projects at certain prisons.

Rehabilitation programs may derail behand due to various reasons. The slots for rehabilitation may not be well utilized due to factors such as inadequate trainers, and the same inmate might be enrolled in deferent programs at the same time hence less the number of inmates who benefit. Rehabilitation programs need to be pointed towards the mainrisk, uppermostneed lawbreakers. This is because programs are utmost cost-effective if engineered at uppermostrisk, highestneed criminals. Highestrisk and highestneed inmates refer to victims with a moderate or high risk of reoffending and a moderate or high need for one or more therapy programs.

In the rehabilitation programs, the key principles used are evidence-based, Appraised for CostEffectiveness and Focused on HighestRisk and HighestNeed Inmates. Evidence-based programs are likely to be successful in reducing repeat crimes. Any evidence-based program is based on research; they curricula that undergo rigorous evaluations showing that they can reduce re-offending. For instance, correctional education programs were successful in Indiana, New Mexico, and Massachusetts in reducing reoffending among inmates. The rehabilitation programs also need to be implemented with fidelity. Research-based schedules that area rolled with fidelity not only is planned to be similar to the established program but also functions in the same way to the proven plan. For instance, a college correctional education package would be regarded to be executed with commitment if it was both planned and operated at all national pens in the same way as the Indiana suite. In contrary, a program that is planned to work as the Indiana program but fails to operate similarly would be research-based, but not executed with fidelity. Ensuring that rehabilitation is executed with trustworthiness to researchbased ideal raises the possibility that it could fruitfully reduce reoffending.

The prospective benefits of executing evidenced-based models are demonstrated by a chain of scrutinizes carried out by a reliable institute. The models have a substantial amount of research indicating that, if executed with fidelity, they could reduce reoffending enough to generate net economic benefits.

It is projected that inprison therapy programs could generate about $4,300 in net savings per convict in Washington (Hall & Hall 2009). Thus if other states operate similar curricula, this suggests that other states could also lower reoffending hence resulting in net savings to the state. However, the amount of such net savings would vary depending on several factors such as how various costs differ in different states and the degree to which a given state implementing rehabilitation models with fidelity.

The programs should also be evaluated for cost-effectiveness before they implemented. While being evidence-based raises the chances that a rehabilitation model will reduce reoffending, the curricula itself still should be directly assessed. Such an assessment is required to determine the definite influence that the program has on reoffending and if the influence is noteworthy enough to validate its sustainability. Such a model assessment is necessary for twofold reasons. Primarily, it is likely that an evidence-based model could lessen reoffending less, even if it has worked elsewhere. Let's say; the program has elements that cannot successfully be re-formed in the state for various reasons, such as significant differences between inmate population and the population of convicts that the model was initially targeted. Additionally, ensuring that models are cost-effective helps ensure that the state is assigning its partial assets for rehabilitation curricula's in a way that has the supreme effect on reoffending. Consequently, to the level that the nation is not allotting its resources to the main cost-effective process, it is possibly allowing more criminality to befall.

The rehabilitation program should focus on the highest risk and highest need convicts. It is that targeting therapy programs to the highestrisk, and highestneed lawbreakers have the utmost potential to lower reoffending rates. Rehabilitation models in Ohio established that high-risk victims who endured in curricula over a year had about eight percentage point lower recidivism proportion than high-risk convicts who did not partake or take part for less than a year (Hall & Hall, 2009). On the other hand, low-risk prisoners who took part in the process for over a year had about seven percentage point higher reoffending rate than those who did not partake or participated for less than a year. Providing effective rehabilitation models to its highestrisk, highestneed prisoners, it is possible to avoid the huge number of future lawbreakers and deliver the utmost economic benefit to national and local governments. It is also imperative that the risk and need valuations used to categorize convicts be authenticated every time there is a major change in the prisoner population because the valuations were classically shaped using population info from prior years. Authentication is a process in which the valuation is tested to ensure that it is properly categorizing prisoners. Likely, valuations designed for convict populations from prior years may no longer correctly classify the current number. A risk valuation that is not frequently authenticated could unsuitably characterize high-risk inmates as low risk, leading to such convicts not receiving suitable rehabilitative services.

Without an assessment of Rehabilitation models, it is difficult to ensure that the programs are operating in a manner that maximizes a reduction in reoffending. For instance, it is uncertain whether the anger management models are dependably employing the treatment techniques found to be effective elsewhere. This raises questions about how effective a program is reducing reoffending.

It is important to assess the cost-effectiveness of in-prison rehabilitation models. Inmates who participated in the rehabilitative programs are less likely to recidivate than those who did not.

As said in the details, the prison environment is often conducive to criminalization rather than rehabilitation. However, a reorganization of prisons could fix the problem. Prisons are very costly in operation. Prisons become problematic to manage as the population of inmates in the same institution upsurge. However, taking thousands of men and flogging them before returning them to society is not helpful; most of them when allowed to join society commit a similar crime and are re-arrested. Prisons need centralization, which at its center is inefficient and costly. Floggings can be done individually and anywhere, so to be most efficient the convict would probably be flogged right outside the courthouse then let go. This only requires paying a couple of officers for a half-hour of guarding and then beating the offender. Many criminal and semi criminal cultures glorify prison. No criminal glorify being flogged. Prisons can easily become corrupt when they form an isolated culture among the guards and administration. Floggings are public and one-time things and are in no way conducive to corruption.

Conclusion

Imprisonment is not intended to be fun. But a blend of strict sentencing procedures, budget shortfalls and a disciplinary philosophy of corrections which has turned pr...