Justice System & Correctional Facilities: A Broken Promise? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Every society needs to have a way to regulate the behavior of the individuals in the community to ensure that there is order within the community. Among the ways includes the justice system and correctional facility in a country.however, the justice system and correctional facilities have not lived to the expectation of society. The systems have been characterized by weak laws such as capital punishment that undermine the relevance of life in society and poor conditions in the correctional facilities that at times harden inmate as opposed to correcting them. Therefore there is a need for the amendment of the correction facilities system laws to improve the condition in the facilities and increase the value of human life in society.

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Capital punishment in the correctional facilities does not uphold or show any respect for human life (Hodgkinson, 2016). It is the role of the correctional facility to work in any way to help an inmate be changed their unethical ways. It should be done to ensure that they can go back to society and be able to integrate themselves with the community. However, in a case of capital punishment, the correctional facility, the claim that the individual cannot be redeemed is a general term that the facility is unable to provide enough bases. From a recent report, the human being canned change the only problem is to identify how to change them. For this reason, not all methods that are in the correctional facilities are effective for everyone. At times people need time to heal and understand their world to be able to come back to reality and perceive how life works.

Capital punishment is also costly to execute and yield no return in the society except they believe that the criminal will not perform more crimes since their dead (Hodgkinson, 2016). Nonetheless, they do not guarantee that other people won't replace the criminal in society. The correctional facility spends too much in executing a person who yields nothing as compared to having them in the correctional facilities where they can be involved in activities that can generate more to the government and also offer a chance of redemption to the person.

However, the constitution should amend the law given that it contradicts the eight laws in the constitution, where there should be no unfair treatment by the correctional facilities system (Hodgkinson, 2016). Hence life sentence is a more suitable deterrence method in the constitution that should be employed because it has more to offer for both the parties in the community. A life sentence ensures that the criminal can provide services to the community back in there time in the facility as compared to when they are dead. Nonetheless, they are also a chance that they are going to change when they are alive than dead, which is the primary goal of a correctional facility in a community.

According to Austin (2019), Mathew release from prison by the United States President Donald Trump in last year, February was a clear indication of the advantages of long sentences over capital punishment in the society. Mathew had a chance to amend his crime in the community, he attended countless bible studies in prison and reformed, and after just 23 years, he was released and was able to be integrated into the society. As opposed to a situation where if he had been killed in the capital law punishment, he would not stand a chance to redemption back into society.

The mental illness in the correctional facilities has been increasing for the last few decades. This has increase concerns on how the institutions are handling the mental illness in the prisons. This raised concern lead to the birth of the control unit in 2004 to address prisoners who were found to be dangerous to both their inmate and the staff of the institution (Fazel & Baillargeon, 2011). However, the states of these control units do not address the real issue; they only increase the mental illness of the person. Poorly trained correctional officers who could are not able to diagnose when a prisoner's dangerous behavior is arising from mental illness and find a proper solution rather than throwing them in a cage alone that only makes their conditions worse.

Correction officer is in the prime position in noting when a prisoner is undergoing specific changes in their mental status in prison (Fazel el at 2008). However, most of them tend to ignore and assume the situation of the prisoner. In turn, the condition of the inmates worsens, and they end up engaging themselves in dangerous actions such as fighting with their teammates and even worse, committing suicide in their cells. Nonetheless, if the prison officer had decided to take action for the prisoner during his initial stages of the illness, it would have evaded the situation that happened.

The government is also posed by the challenge of educating the correctional officers in the community on ways to handle the mentally ill inmates ((Fazel & Baillargeon, 2011). It is because most correctional officers level of education given that most correctional officers are high school graduates in society. Henceforth it becomes tricky to educate them medically on the issue of mental illness and how to effectively handle their inmates who have such psychological problems in the prisons. This makes them hardly ever equipped to handle the situations in the cells or even have the ability to note any change in the mental behavior of an inmate.

Lack of enough knowledge on mental illness by the correctional officers makes them attend less to the mentally ill compared to inmates that are physically ill in the cells (Fazel & Baillargeon, 2011). Nonetheless, mental illness is equally severe as a physical illness. Lacks the ability of these correctional officers to diagnose mental illness in inmates has to lead to a poor decision of punishing rather than seeking treatment for the inmates.

The government needs to enact a policy that requires all the correctional officers to have at least a background on a mental illness issue (Fazel el at 2008). This would adequately reduce cases of mental illness in society. Every correctional facility should be adequately equipped with enough facilities to handle mental illness for the inmates in the correctional facility. Finally, the mental state of an inmate should be adequately assessed before they are taken to the control unit chamber, not worsen the existing illness in the name of the control.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the killing will never reform any human being in a society. It offers nothing back as opposed to letting people live and taking chances that they will be able to change. Long sentences are less costly and provide more in the long run those deaths that equally undermine the importance of living in society. Hence, capital punishment is not a worthy punishment in a constitution of any country who values their citizen. Similarly, the government has a job and role to play to ensure that the situation in the correctional centers is improved to ensure that the number of mental illness in the centers is minimized.

References

Austin, R. (2019). Second Looks, Second Chances: Collaborating with Lifers Inc. on a Video about Commutation of LWOP Sentences. U. Pa. JL & Soc. Change, 22, 71.

Fazel, S., & Baillargeon, J. (2011). The health of prisoners. The Lancet, 377(9769), 956-965.

Hodgkinson, P. (2016). Capital punishment: new perspectives. Routledge.

Fazel, S.,el at. (2008). The prevalence of mental disorders among the homeless in western countries: systematic review and meta-regression analysis. PLoS medicine, 5(12).