Paper on US Correctional System: Migrating Away from Custodial Model to Rehabilitation

Introduction

The paper argues that the United States (US) correctional system should migrate its correctional laws and institutions away from the Custodial Model in favor of the Rehabilitation approach. The justification for this stance comes from a comparative analysis of the correctional systems in both the US and the United Kingdom (UK). The analysis revealed that the Rehabilitation approach to dealing with convicted criminals in the UK significantly lowered the rates of recidivism in that jurisdiction compared to the US. Furthermore, it would take away opportunities for private businesses to corrupt the criminal sentencing process. Given the tax burden attached to mass incarceration in the US, an additional benefit of the ideological transition argued for in this paper is that it significantly reduces the cost of running America's correctional systems.

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Key Words: Comparative Analysis, Correctional Models, Rehabilitation.

In the common law legal system originating from the UK, criminal law exists to maintain social order. These laws, after all, primarily seek to reduce the likelihood of interpersonal conflict by describing the kind of behavior expected from all members of society. For example, laws that prohibit theft and robbery exist to ensure the individual right to own personal property is not arbitrarily interfered with by another person while trespass laws protect the right to quiet possession of their real property. The government has an exclusive right to punish the violation of criminal law; otherwise, giving it the exclusive power to make laws through the Social Contract would not make sense. Hence the criminal justice system (CJS) comprises law enforcement agencies (i.e., police), criminal courts, and correctional facilities (i.e., Prison systems).

Comparative Analysis of American and British Correctional Approaches

Firstly, Both the US and UK are common law jurisdictions; however, they take different approaches to deal with their convicted criminals. The American CJS has a preference for the Custodial Model that emphasizes incarcerating criminal offenders. In the British CJS, there is an emphasis on using imprisonment as a measure of last resort. Consequently, the American CJS seeks to secure social order by deterring crimes while the British CJS wants to achieve the same effect by converting a convicted criminal into a productive member of society. Therefore, even though two correctional models are employed, they both want to reduce the chances of re-offending after an offender is discharged.

Secondly, both jurisdictions have a system of private jails. The American CJS opted for private prisons to lower the costs associated with following the Custodial Model (Ward et al., .2013). The cost of running prisons also compelled the British government to copy the American trend of having private prisons in the 1990s (Villettaz, et al., 2006). Despite these similarities, because the two jurisdictions follow different correctional approaches, there are differences.

The American CJS has a "lockdown" mentality that has been exasperated by the entry of private business. The danger to anyone charged with a crime in America is that having a CJS anchored almost exclusively on the Custodial Model is open to unethical practices by businesses that own private jails. For example, American judges have been convicted of taking bribes in exchange for ensuring that a specific jail had a steady supply of juvenile offenders (Urbina and Hamill,2009). On the other hand, the same thing did not happen in the UK. The Rehabilitation Model, in that jurisdiction, has taken away the opportunity for private businesses to corrupt the sentencing process in the same way they have in the US (Ward et al., .2013).

The second distinction between the two jurisdictions is the recidivism rates. The Custodial Model, followed in the US, makes its prisons poorly equipped to address the underlying causes of criminal offending. Hence the psychological trauma that pushes a juvenile delinquent in to commit a crime is not addressed, and they grow up to become adult criminal offenders. Similarly, adult offenders rarely get the help they need to make them productive members of society after their release. The net result is a higher rate of recidivism compared to the UK where prisoners acquire the mental health interventions as well as skills, they need to become reintegrated back into society as law-abiding citizens (Villettaz, et al., 2006).

Conclusions

The comparative analysis of the correctional systems in the US and the United Kingdom (UK) revealed that the Rehabilitation approach has several advantages. This reduces the rates of recidivism. Second, it would take away the chances for a private business that own jails from corrupting the criminal sentencing process. Given the costs associated with the Custodial Model, the Rehabilitation Model is a cheaper alternative to dealing with criminal offending.

References

Urbina, I. and, Hamill, S.(2009)Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html

Villettaz, P., Killias, M., and Zoder, I. (2006). The effects of custodial vs. noncustodial sentences on reoffending: A systematic review of the state of knowledge. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 2(1), 1-69 . HYPERLINK "https://doi.org/10.4073/csr.2006.13" https://doi.org/10.4073/csr.2006.13

Ward, K., Longaker, A. J., Williams, J., Naylor, A., Rose, C. A., and Simpson, C. G. (2013). Incarceration within American and Nordic prisons: Comparison of national and international policies. The International Journal of Research and Practice on Student Engagement, 1(1), 36-47. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chad_Rose/publication/235948052