Essay on Reforms Needed in Rehabilitative Systems: Updating for the Modern World

Introduction

There exist a variety of principles that need reforms and updating to fit to the current world in terms of rehabilitative systems. The existing system of criminal justice has several sections that need to be reviewed for it to provide an ideal rehabilitation to the convicts. In the modern world the is increased cases of abuse of drugs and substances as well as critical cycle of crimes that affect the systems hence impacting adversely their abilities to restore the good behavior of the convicts under the management by various state agencies (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). The principles reforms on the matter must be designed in a way that includes the available resources, a pay increment for the correctional officers, employing more teachers, construction of learning facilities such as classes, libraries and laboratories for the convicts. The staff should also be trained and psychotherapy offered to the inmates. All these strategies are to support a smooth living of the inmates, protecting their rights as well as their social justice.

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However, some of the rehabilitation facilities available in different countries in the world are not as friendly and may not end up rehabilitating the inmates, but may impact them negatively. For instance, in the United States of America has a wanting criminal justice system which has recently come under critical scrutiny (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). The government had indicated that considerable reforms were necessary to ensure that the rights of the inmates have been protected and that they needed better treatment of the inmates. Criminal justice systems are critical facilities as they help in correcting and rehabilitating offenders. Changes are necessary to assist in better treatment of the inmates to enhance prompt rehabilitation, and behavior change as incompatible systems might only make the inmate worse instead of reforming them (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018).

While addressing the issue, it will be a critical move as it will ensure that the rights of the convicts are respected to allow them better treatment, which promotes equality. Inmates need proper housing, which the other citizens enjoy; hence, the reforms must address appropriate housing and living to make the convicts feel equal to the other citizens. Additionally, providing essential health care services to them would be an excellent move in ensuring that they are treated similarly to their free counterparts. Through ensuring that they have access to the necessary social facilities, equity, and social justice will be achieved as well.

Background

In the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, prisons were ideal facilities for rehabilitation of wrongdoers working under individual correctional policies. The old American jails, such as those that were located at Ossining, Pittsburgh, Auburn, and elsewhere in 1820, were keen at applying the rehabilitative procedures provided (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). The new criminal rehabilitative policies believed in the separation of the wrongdoers from the other citizens. The isolated criminal with the aim of removing them from the possible temptations that existed in the community, such as those that caused them to engage in criminal acts. The move was believed to be offering the convicts an environment as well as time to listen to selves, reflect on their actions, and the needs that were necessary to assist them to stop the behaviors (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). The idea that the inmates would convert back to their original good nature when removed from the influences of the society made the policies to be more aggressive as well as upholding more stern treatment guided by the social sciences into crime.

Several studies in criminology, sociology, and psychology offered the people responsible for policy reforms with a comprehensive understanding of the deviance and sophisticated tools that would deal with the issue (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). Rehabilitation of lawbreakers, therefore, was taken as a science of imparting more knowledge to the criminals, infiltrating more values, skills as well as attitudes required to live as per the law. The approach of rehabilitation was that not the crime, but the character is subject to reforms which should be determined by the treatment they get. In the early 1970s, rehabilitation of convicts suffered a reversal of fortune. The enormous disruptions in the American communities during that period led to an overall criticism of the state to perform in a more lenient way towards the convicts (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). Systems were blaming the rehabilitation policies that were in existence because of permitting the country and its organs to act in a forceful manner to the convicts. The conservatives further criticized it for giving chances to the state to be friendlier to the offenders.

In this case, the collapse of rehabilitation was sounded by Robert Martison's influence, which consequently reported that little treatment programs decreased the rate of re-offense. The paper will review the analysis and studies which legitimized the anti-treatment measures of the time. It ostensibly confirmed what many people already knew, which no rehabilitation ever achieved. Law and incapacitation influenced the criminal justice system up to the 1990s, where an uncontrollable hike in the population of the convicts in the prisons created gaps where the advantages of criminal rehabilitative principles could be negotiated (Neubauer, & Fradella, 2018). The rise in the people of the convicts in the United States of America had resulted in the alternation of perceptions on the punitive measures vs. rehabilitation policies.

The available literature provides more information on the development strategies that have been crafted to better the policies and to make them fit into the current world where human rights must be respected. Therefore, laws have been formed in different nations to protect the rights of the convicts by allowing them proper treatments and access to the social facilities, which are integral in rehabilitation and social justice. Restoration of the convicts must be done compassionately; hence measures are put in place since the eighteenth century, which includes allowing more accessible access to health facilities for the convicts, proper living conditions in the prisons, allowing the relatives to visit their people while in the correctional facilities. Those are among the many strategies laid down to facilitate smooth rehabilitation as well as respect for the rights of the convicts.

Additionally, children's rights must be respected in all circumstances. The justice system does not disregard children below the age of 18 years as unanswerable to the crimes they perpetrate (Annison, & Brayford, 2015). They also face the law but in a way that guards their welfare and rights. Therefore, reforms have been made, which put into consideration the needs of these children to show compassion and regard for their future lives. As a result, juvenile justice systems have been formed to take care of juvenile offenders where their interests and other rights are taken care of. These systems offer the young offenders opportunities to acquire education while still in the correctional facilities, which were implemented the same years back as per the available literature about juvenile offenders (Annison, & Brayford, 2015).

Alternatives to Criminal Rehabilitation

After analysis of some of the rehabilitative policies that were put in place in the criminal justice systems, several reforms were made as per the requirements by the laws that were formulated based on different statistics and human rights. With the advancement in the knowledge and activism from various groups, specific policies were scraped off. In contrast, new ones were put in place to address the issue of convicts' rehabilitation through the criminal justice systems (Crutchfield, 2016). As a result, alternative policies were put in place where some were designed to conserve the rights of the convicts as per the requirements of various humanitarian organizations. These alternative measures were formed to address the wellness of the convicts while in the facilities. They included policies on proper treatment, proper shelters, access to education and medical care as well as access to other social requirements to make them feel equal to those people who are free (Crutchfield, 2016). The primary aim was to provide equality and social justice among convicts of all cadres, both adults and children. Some of the alternative policies instead of imprisonment, which has been found to have a range of disadvantages have been formulated and laid in place may include the following:

Diversion from Prosecution

People are arrested every day because of committing certain crimes which have different weights in the eyes of the law. It is therefore not advisable that every case taken to court must end with the imprisonment of the perpetrator. Such actions are causing overcrowding in prison, which makes it expensive for the governments to provide the social needs to these huge populations with the money that would have otherwise been used for development programs. A system of diversion from prosecution of certain simple offenses should be applied to curb such an issue (Crutchfield, 2016). The courts have a range of options at their disposal to use to help them divert offenders from prosecution lawfully. Some of the options are provided by the penal codes of the various states, which may include verbal sanctions, community service order, mediation, arbitration, conditional discharge, as well as other therapeutic processes (Crutchfield, 2016). Such options may help the offenders of small crimes to reform outside the walls of prisons, which has been an adage way of rehabilitating criminals while depriving them of their constitutional rights, equity as well as social justice.

Pretrial Detention

The general provision is that a person must be allowed their freedoms and not supposed to be detained to wait for their trials. According to Principle 36(2) of the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment prohibits any incarceration that is not necessitated for detention or to avoid interference or blocking investigation or the process of justice administration (Bondeson, 2017). It is, therefore, integral that the authorities must decide whether to continue with pretrial detention, which offers an array of options to apply. Some of the options available include discharging the charged person and requiring them to do a range of things such as appearing in court on specified days, to remain at a specific location, report daily to a court or police station, surrender passports and other travel documents among other things. However, this policy may have demerits, such as the suspect failing to obey the directives. Others may also attempt destroying available evidence as well as threatening the witnesses (Bondeson, 2017). This is an alternative to the rehabilitative policies that were applied earlier to help curb those that infringe on the rights and freedoms of the suspects as well as barring them from social justice and equity.

Prompt Sentencing

Delayed sentencing of suspects is typically among the backward issues that make suspects remain in detention for long before their fate is determined. Therefore, prompt sentencing of suspects would be an alternative to the existing rehabilitative policies. The judicial systems have the authority to make decisions that suit the needs of rehabilitation of the convicts. The Tokyo provisions provide that instead of imprisonment, other measures can be embraced by the judiciary...