Rehabilitation

[Behind The Mask]

So because I was bored I was looking up different debate topics online and came across this


http://idebate.org/debatabase/debates/crime/house-believes-criminal-justice-should-focus-more-rehabilitation


Which I found rather interesting. It's about whether or not criminal justice should focus more on rehabilitation.


To save you the time of reading through everything I'll list the points made and there counterpoints here but if you wish to read the whole thing then the link is above


Points for and counterpoints to them:

• " ...for it alone promotes the humanising belief in the notion that offenders can be saved and not simply punished. Desert (retributive) theory, on the other hand, sees punishment as an end in itself, in other words, punishment for punishment’s sake."
  
• Counter: "The purpose of punishment is to show disapproval for the offender’s wrongdoing, and to clearly condemn his criminal actions."
  
• "The rehabilitative ideal does not ignore society and the victim. In fact it is because retribution places such great value on the prisoner’s rights that it tries so hard to change the offender and prevent his reoffending. By seeking to reduce reoffending and to reduce crime, it seeks constructively to promote the safety of the public, and to protect individuals from the victimisation of crime."
  
• Counter: " A prison sentence is as much a punishment for the offender as a symbol of the reaction of society. Society creates law as an expression of the type of society we are aiming to create. This is why we punish; we punish to censure (retribution), we do not punish merely to help a person change for the better (rehabilitation). We still have to punish a robber or a murderer, even if he is truly sorry and even if he would really, really never offend again and even if we could somehow tell that for certain. This is because justice, and not rehabilitation, makes sense as the justification for punishment."
  
• "Rehabilitation has another important value – it recognises the reality of social inequity. To say that some offenders need help to be rehabilitated is to accept the idea that circumstances can constrain, if not compel, and lead to criminality.
  
• Counter: "Crime is not pathology, it is not the product of circumstance, and it is certainly not the product of coincidence. As the case of Husng Guangyu shows, despite being Chinas richest man he still committed crimes involving illegal business dealing, insider trading and bribery and was then sentenced to 14 years. This was rightly given in order as a just punishment for the cost of the crimes he had committed and to deter others from such practices."
  
• Counter: "Crime is the result of choices made by the individual, and therefore the justice system must condemn those choices when they violate society’s rules. To say otherwise (i.e. to say that criminals are merely the product of their unfortunate circumstances) would be an insult to human autonomy - the liberalist idea that our judicial system is based on, in saying that individuals are given the power to make their own decisions freely and this should be interfered with in as little as possible. "
  
• " Prisons are little more than schools of crime if there aren't any rehabilitation programs. Prisons isolate offenders from their families and friends so that when they are released their social networks tend to be made up largely of those whom they met in prison. "
  

-(sub point) "As well as sharing ideas, prisoners may validate each others’ criminal activity. Employers are less willing to employ those who have been to prison. Such circumstances may reduce the options available to past offenders and make future criminal behaviour more likely. Rehabilitation becomes more difficult."

​

• Counter: "Retributivism alone best recognises the offender’s status as a moral agent, by asking that he take responsibility for what he has done, rather than to make excuses for it. It appeals to an inherent sense of right and wrong, and in this way is the most respectful to humanity because it recognises that persons are indeed fundamentally capable of moral deliberation, no matter what their personal circumstances are."
  

Points against and counterpoints (There's a lot more but I'm only listing some):

• "The primary goal of our criminal justice system is to remove offenders from general society and protect law abiding citizens. Many criminals are repeat offenders and rehabilitation can be a long and expensive process...the first priority is the removal of the convicted criminal from society in order to protect the innocent. Rehabilitation should be a secondary concern. he primary concern of the criminal justice system should be the protection of the non-guilty parties. The needs of society are therefore met by the immediate removal of the offender."
  
• Counter: "it is especially clear in the case of non-violent offenders that criminal behaviour often stems from a perceived lack of alternatives. Offenders often lack educational qualifications and skills."
  
• "In addition a more retributive approach serves society through the message it conveys. Most modern defences of retribution would emphasize its role in reinforcing the moral values of society and expressing the public's outrage at certain crimes. Rehabilitation therefore weakens the strong message of disgust as to the offender’s actions that a traditional prison sentence symbolises and the deterrent that it thus provides."
  
• Counter: "The needs of society are not being met by those who reoffend due to lack of rehabilitation. The fact that two thirds of offenders subsequently re-offend with two years[1] suggests that the prison system does little to encourage people to stay on the right side of the law. Clearly, the threat of prison is not enough alone and needs to be supplemented by other schemes."
  
• Counter: "These people can then contribute back into society rather than a purely retributive model which just takes from a system."
  
  
• "The rehabilitation programs simply do not work. ‘Rehabilitation’ is therefore a false promise – and the danger with such an illusory and impossible goal is that it is used as a front to justify keeping offenders locked up for longer than they deserve and sometimes even indefinitely (‘if we keep him here longer maybe he might change’). We cannot justify passing any heavier or more onerous a sentence on a person in the name of “rehabilitation” if “rehabilitation” does not work."
  
• Counter: "If we had the opportunity to stop some offenders re-offending why do we not seize this opportunity? Rehabilitative programs provide such an opportunity. Such programs include cognitive-behavioural programs (say, trying to get a violent offender to think and reach differently to potential ‘trigger’ situations), pro-social modelling programmes, and some sex-offender treatment programs...Rehabilitation is a concept. It is not a definite technique whose effectiveness can be precisely measured. So yes some forms of rehabilitation may not work, others however might...Such an indefinite ideal cannot be proven as ineffective. For example, if somebody proves that high-speel monorail transportation is ineffective, this does not mean that transportation is absolutely and fundamentally flawed. One simply cannot disprove an infinite set of hypotheses."
  
• Counter: "The most credible research (done by a technique called meta-analysis) demonstrates that the net effect of treatment is, on average, a positive reduction of overall recidivism (reoffending) rates of between 10% and 12%, which would promote a reduction in crime that is, by criminal standards, massive."
  
• "The evidence from all over the world suggests that recidivism rates are difficult to reduce and that some offenders just can’t be rehabilitated. It therefore makes economic sense to cut all rehabilitation programs and concentrate on ensuring that prisoners serve the time they deserve for their crimes and are kept off the streets where they are bound to re-offend. As it can be seen that some deserving of a longer sentence only receive short sentences due to lack of time and space and some who have committed shorter sentences are given long sentences aimed at making a point or sending a message."
  
• Counter: "There is no hard and fast rule. Money spent on rehabilitation may cost a lot, but is well worth it, when you consider cuts to the rate of reoffending, leading to reduced expense related to those who reoffend and less crowded prisons...Furthermore, in America, where measures like the ‘three-strike policy’ were introduced and rehabilitation discouraged, ‘more than four out of ten adult American offenders still return to prison within three years of their release’.[3] Retribution simply does not work, and it is certainly not saving the government any money."
  

Okay so I know that was a lot to read but the points presented were good on both sides. I personally think that more rehabilitation is worth trying. Why send criminals back out into the same environment without any resources or abilities to fix there lives? It's a circle and they are bound to reoffend and go back to where they were. There's a statistic I read for this project I'm working on that says 54% of homeless people in America have been incarcerated and there's over 1,500,000 people homeless in america (this is an average, I think if I read it right) so that means that over 750,000 of the homeless people have been to jail which, not a statistic but my estimation, is one of the primary causes for their homelessness. Homelessness itself is an issue to be debated on it's own but back to my point here. Though it may not work for all of them the thing is, shouldn't we at least try? The possibility of it being helpful I think proves we should at least give the idea some thought.


Anyways what do you guys think?

 

[ButtonsAfterDark]

I personally believe myself that rehabilitation is a great thing when used in the right way. For certain people it may never work, but why not try? I may be a bit bias due to the fact that I have been homeless for some odd years off and on through out my small life time. I have seen plenty of people who if it weren't due to their living situations would have never been involved in criminal activity what-so-ever. Some which have been wrongly incarcerated as well for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is for a different rant. I think rehabilitation works, but what are those people going to do once out of rehab/prison after months/years at a time? They usually come out homeless, no income, no job, no starting money or cars, unless they are lucky and family will take them in. It's sad, actually. I would like to see a proper rehabilitation program that just doesn't say "We fixed you, you're done now."


One that could check up on you throughout the next year and help you start back in life and get a job, etc.


I support that.

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[Lore]

I honestly feel like it needs to be based on the crime. Rehabilitation for unjust murderers and rapists seems a little redundant. I don't care how sorry they are, they have no place in society and I'm just as happy with letting them rot in a cage. Did I say unjust murderers? Yes, I did. I do believe that there are justifiable reasons for taking another human being's life. That is not a debate for this thread, however. But don't get me wrong. I believe that a murderer and even a rapist could come to genuinely regret their crime and even become a better person but the punishment should always fit the crime.


But when it comes to non-violent criminals, I think that even they deserve some form of rehabilitation during their stay and before their departure. Some supervision after their release would be reasonable, too. Naturally, this is all easier said than done but it is not entirely out of the question. It is already done in the United States but the resources are extremely limited and such programs are usually ineffective, especially after the prisoner's release.


A lot of non-violent crimes such as theft and even drug dealing are very much a product of environment. Stereotypes often keep people from seeing this as a real problem but a lot of people will never know what it is like to be a young black teenager living in the ghetto and watching his single mother break her back working two minimum-wage jobs in order to support them. Then he walks the streets and sees these homies slinging rocks and sporting the latest pair of Jordans and yet he's kickin' it some knock-around thrift store shoes with busted laces. Yet in school he is being taught that drugs are bad and drug dealers are bad people and that crime doesn't pay but when that bell rings he is back on the streets surrounded by the hypocrisy of their lessons.


Why did I mention that the teenager was black? Maybe it's because I'm black. Maybe I'm white and it is because somebody already brought up statistics so I thought it was appropriate. Regardless of why I did it, just know that it is not due to any sort of ridiculous prejudice and that I felt like it was appropriate to the subject. I don't like that I feel like I have to clarify that but a lot of people get up-in-arms over such things.


The fact is, everybody deserves to be treated like a human being. Even those who act like monsters. If some psycho nut killed someone I loved, would I want to brutally murder them? Probably. Would I if I was given the chance? I won't say no. But that wouldn't change my belief that even that person deserves to be treated like a human. It would be my actions that would be wrong, not my reasoning (in regards to my own morals, that is).


So I definitely support rehabilitation. Hell, even give it to violent offenders, just don't try to get me to agree that rehabilitation means they should be allowed to re-join society. Even criminals who do not deserve to rejoin society deserve to make peace with themselves and their God (should it be relevant).