I actually work with convicted felons coming out of prison. Currently I work in a 45-day drug rehab facility. Before this I spent a year and a half in a community corrections (halfway house) facility with people coming out of prison and people who violated their probation.
I actually have a much better opinion of the prison system than I did before I started this work. It is a deeply flawed system, but I now can see that it does more good than harm overall. Previously, I often wondered (based on media portrayals and threads like this one) if we wouldn’t be better off with nothing than with what we have now.
The idea that there is no attempt at rehabilitation is false. I understand there isn’t as much rehabilitation in prison as in a halfway house or on parole, but there is some significant attempt to address both criminal thinking patterns and substance use disorders at every stage. Where I’ve worked, it is very significant, and is combined with some efforts to reintegrate the offenders into society as well.
The problem is that rehabilitation is expensive and doesn’t work very well. Many people don’t want to be rehabilitated. With them, we can only hope that they will learn some skills that they will eventually decide to put to use, and maybe give them some sense that they don’t have to live that way. Many people do want to be rehabilitated, but find old habits (especially drug- and alcohol- related habits) hard to break. I support legalizing some drugs, but it wouldn’t make that much difference. Alcohol leads to more crimes (DUIs, domestic violence, assaults, etc.) than any other drug, IME.
There are other problems with rehabilitation, too. Martin Luther King spent time behind bars. What if he had been “rehabilitated”?
Institutionalization is another problem. I meet lots of clients who tell me that prison is a deterrent - that they’ve wasted too much time locked up and never want to go back. I’ve also met lots of them who tell me that being locked up is the best thing that ever happened to them, because it got them drug treatment and forced them to see the consequences of the lifestyle they were leading. But then there are the ones who would much rather sit in a prison than face the greater responsibility and greater expectations (and hence greater opportunity to fail) of a halfway house program. And others who see prison as just another unpleasant but expected part of life, like elementary school, a job you don’t like, paying taxes, or waiting at the DMV, and in fact would gladly risk prison in order to avoid all of those other things. I had one client tell me that he had wanted to go to prison because literally every person he knew had been to prison.
Worst are the ones who are so institutionalized that they can’t adjust to society. The ones who, even after they’re out, will lick their dessert before beginning a meal (so no one else will steal it). These people have no sense of trust, of fellowship, of any ethic beyond survival. They may have the best of intentions, but have a hard time working a job when they see everyone as a potential threat, difficulty having a family when they’ve learned that any sign of emotion or trust is a weakness that will be taken advantage of, and trouble staying sober when just walking down the street makes them anxious and uncomfortable.
That said, the worst cases are rare, at least in my job, and it’s the societal and family problems that are the hardest for most clients to overcome - or to even see the need to overcome. And despite it all, people do turn themselves around. Seldom all at once, but over time and in small ways, people learn from their mistakes and from the opportunities they’re given. I’ve met very few people I would actually consider “bad,” and I’ve met lots of fundamentally good people - even a few of the nicest and best - who simply lack the skills, temperament, judgment, or willpower to consistently make good decisions in their lives. And I have seen people regroup, reassess their lives, and become successful. I love my job, and I love the opportunity it gives me to see people who would otherwise be invisible to me, and to see them in tough situations that reveal their worst - and their best.
