Essay Example on U.S. Prisons Need a Change: Focus on Rehabilitation, Not Punishment

Introduction

A prison, known as the correctional facility, is a place that holds individuals who are remanded by force and in deny on a variety of freedoms by a federal or State government. Prisons require a prison sentence for one to serve when an individual is found guilty due to misdemeanor or felony. The article of Dlugash focuses on United States' necessity to change their prison's focus rather than the punishment to help the prisoners. The target audience is the same people who can change the system and includes the federal government and prison owners. Societal thinking has changed, and so should prisons as institutions. Prisons need reforms because more individuals are being locked up for long sentences. There are huge costs on mass incarceration, such as psychological costs, social costs, feeding, and housing costs.

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Dlugash cites several factors why prison reforms in the United States have stalled. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Dlugash cites three main explanations for stall reforms in prisons of the United States. The first obstacle is the entrenched nature of prisons. Since the late nineteenth century, physical design, rehabilitation, and philosophies of punishments in the United States lack thorough modernization. People think of prisons, as usual, creating an entrenched status quo (Zhang & Shands, 2019). The prisoners are considered as not righteous, therefore deserving appropriate punishment of placing them in a metal cage. The prison system in the United States has the highest frequency of imprisonment with a mix of punishment, rehabilitation, and warehousing. The social status quo on prisons is reified as custom to a point where even clear proof excoriates the disappointments of prisons for recovery (Rosen & Rayart, 2015). The result does not to provide an impetus for reform of United States prisons.

Correspondingly, the modern penal estate is one of the insidious aspects whereby there is less interaction by the public to the prison system ways. Society today continues to consume this system without questioning the punishments that prisons deliver. The public rarely thinks of prisons, and the problem is of out of sight, out of mind thinking. There is the agreement that the entrenched nature of prisons stalls for reforms in prisons of the United States. Based on sound research and scientific evidence, there has to be a serious dialogue to reform the prison system. The architecture of prisons in the United States has an outdated philosophy of punishment. These play a vital role as an obstacle to change because they try to save money by having anachronistic structures such as bars for the cells as room for punishment.

The second reason comes from political pressures and incentives. Many politicians since the 1980s have sought to tackle crime with strict measures because the public did not want to vote for those who had lenient stands, and at times voters punished them (Rosen & Rayart, 2015). There was voting out of the office for politicians who seem to be soft on crimes. One can agree this by the case cited in 1988, whereby Micheal Dukakis, a democratic candidate for the United States, had a prison furlough program. The program was in attack, made him lose the election because of the resulting rape of a civilian. Another more recent case was in 2008 when Mike Huckabee was tarnished for pardoning murder case of four police officers. He lost the presidential Republican primary candidate, and since then, toughness on crime has been on the rise for politicians to thrive. Hands are tied for the opportunity to help this transformation with fear of being painted as soft on crime. The ones in power have undermined policy maker's efforts for reform on severe conditions due to lack of an unrestricted well-organized movement and funding.

The third obstacle is penal excess, and individuals are anxious about crime. It is defined as an act of exceeding limits of moderation, extreme violation of the law, and an outrageous act of conduct concerning prisons. The excess penal notion can genuinely be in tie to the progress of crime as a civilian, lack on faith government competence, and demagoguery. There is a widening in incarceration, including asylum seekers, addicts, illegal immigrants, and the mentally ill (Hopwood, 2018). Inertia helps to keep penal policies excessive even with past human rights evidence on abuses in prisons. There is the illusion that prisons make it safer for people, but in reality, it offers security in a dangerous world. At a gut level, putting people behind bars because they are dangerous may seem to be safer, but also it can be incoherent, unjust, and immoral. These reasons promulgate critical resistance for prison reforms in the United States.

What does your research illustrate as other possible reasons why prison reform has been slow to evolve in the U.S.?

Politics seems to be the reason for slow progress in prison reform. In the justice system reform, there is more politics, for instance, in Illinois slow-moving pace. The Illinois Commission issued a report in 2016 with new laws and legislative proposals on Criminal Justice and sentencing reform. The goal was the reduction of incarcerated inhabitants by twenty-five percent in Illinois by 2025. In the spirit of reform, these new laws may release change, but in practice, there is a shortfall in their implementation (Gottschalk, 2016). The goal to accomplish an active system with more rehabilitation and the smaller system is short lifted. Number eighteen of the commission recommendations, for instance, called for expansion and use of discretionary sentencing credits for the Illinois Department. It enables payment of good behavior or participation in jobs from prisoners and in return get sentence reduction up to six months. The recommendation changed earlier statute on sentencing credits and led the pass of SB1607 by the legislator. The new law was in effect the Public Act 100-0575; it formed the Earned Discretionary Sentencing Credits (EDSC). The main objective of the law was for expansion rather than restriction to strive sooner inmates return of productive life with the use of discretionary sentencing credit. However, the law became effective nine months after the proposal, but still, Institutional Documentation Service (IDOC) did not recommend how they will exercise its discretion.

Frustrating the law's intent, IDOC lacks the efforts to implement EDSC and award deserving prisoner's discretionary credits. The silence and inaction of IDOC generated discord and confusion on EDSC implementation. The worthy and those who were eligible to sentence reduction of the year 2018 remained in dark fueling anxiety and defeats on whether they will leave custody, be productive citizenry, and return to their families. There is an untenable situation, and this is a derogation of duty. The law intended to reduce the incarcerated population by use of sentencing credits and sanction better use of limited resources. Award of EDSC is IDOC's responsibility and make availability of relevant information to the public.

Sessions additionally have a record of blocking prison reforms. The attorney general form of the prison bills in Congress bears a significant amount of discretion in creating a system that is permanent and classifies the needs and risks of an incarcerated individual as well as the education and programming they will receive. Crucially thirty months are required for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to develop and implement the reform by the legislation. The only entities needed are DOJ or federal courts for participation in this process. The attorney general is in the office during the enactment of the reform, thus having outsized influence not only on who benefits from these reforms but also the character and quality in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) recidivism reduction program. The task is unique, and the attorney general is unqualified. Sessions are far from support to re-entry efforts and reforms; it has shut down several re-entry centers for residents. The centers are useful in supporting formerly incarcerated individuals to live outside the jail. The centers were helping to earn credit application for the time in completing a program. The sessions have also proposed budget reduction in correctional officers and staffs in more correctional facilities (Irish, 2018). Federal prisons are forced to assign medical professionals and prisons' administrative as correctional guards because of critical staffing shortages. The designated persons have no equipment or training to ensure staff and inmate safety.

A false narrative has been perpetuated by sessions that all offenses such as immigration and drugs-related ones to be connected to violence. The incorporation of this type of analysis that is faulty for program matching and determining credit time for points would make convicts of immigration and drugs to not benefit from prison reform bills. There is an opportunity for the Attorney general to gain the trust of advocates for reform in criminal justice and Congress beginning a process that is transparent, improving the incarcerated education and job training. Without producing racial disparities, the attorney general can convene for assessment through a nonpartisan group of professionals to recognize opportunities to help incarcerated individuals. Additionally, funding can be requested by the COJ from Congress instead of cut on it for the prison reform budget. It requires no legislation for these activities to commence. Yet, there is the refusal by sessions to use the attorney general authority for the initiation of any policies resembling prison reforms. Many congress leaders should be applauded for their motivation and efforts to pass legislation that addresses the system of criminal justice.

Research and analyze at least two prison reform efforts in the U.S. and their respective outcomes.

The First Step Act is the most substantial reform for criminal justice that President Trump signed into law. The Democrats and Republicans came together as liberals and conservatives on the bill. They both moved away from the mantra of toughness on crime. The Republicans now talk of the initiative as a right to crime whiles the Democrats speak of it as smart on crime policies. The agreement is on heavy criminal penalties and aggressive policing, where both agree that harm was more than suitable for low-level offenses penalties. It is one of the modest steps affecting only the criminal justice and the federal system altering punitive prison sentences. Essentially, the law could allow the cut of many more prison sentences and earn early release for prisoners. Under federal law, the reform eases mandatory minimum sentences expanding safety valves that judges can use. The judges can use the safety valve to avoid minimum penalties handing down. The law reduces the rule of three strikes, and individuals with more than three convictions can get twenty-five years in jail automatically, among other charges instead of life. Drug offenders are restricted against the current allegations of stacking gun shortening custodial condemnations in the future.

The law rises earning on time credits, and convicts can receive them by avoiding disciplinary record (Obama, 2016). Inmates can acquire up to forty-seven days credits per year, but with the cap, the number rises to fifty-four days allowing an additional one week for the well-behaved inmates. The reform additionally will enable inmates to participate more in rehabilitative and vocational programs earning time credits. They can use the credits for early release to halfway home or house confinement. The reform will mitigate overcrowding in prisons, and the long term reduces both incarcer...