Prison and Facilities Offering Rehabilitation Essay

Prisoner Rehabilitation is when a criminal offender has been reformed of their criminal behavior. Many correctional facilities offer several different types of rehabilitation programs to the offenders that are housed within the facility; unfortunately with many states seeing budget cuts these types of rehabilitation programs are being cut. With the amount of facilities offering rehabilitation programs are dwindling and the amount of prisoners increasing this could lead to major problems in the future. Prisoner rehabilitation is a way to try and ensure that upon the offenders release that society is safe from the offender’s criminal ways. Some correctional facilities offer rehabilitation programs like drug and alcohol rehab, religion, and anger management and that is just a few (Foster, 2006). First discussed back in the Twentieth Century although it is believed to of been used before than. Rehabilitation has never been the soul reason for the incarceration of a person. Prison official were not able to give a defined and clear method of rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). Scientific penology was a major role in defining and conducting structured thoughts and scientific studies that can be utilized through rehabilitation (Foster, 2006). Rehabilitation programs have an effect on prisoners, prisons, and society in general in different ways. Prison inmates who have these types of programs available it gives them something constructive to do with their time; when you are incarcerated believe it or not but all you have is time to kill. These types of rehabilitation programs can have a positive impact on the inmate’s lives and in turn on society. If an inmate can complete rehabilitation program while incarcerated and change their lifestyle when released it benefits not only the inmate but also helps society. These programs can help offenders by building their self worth so that they can believe they deserve better than a prison life and let them know that there is something more out there other than the prison life. Some say that these types of programs don’t work and in some cases they don’t but in some they  do work and can give an inmate a real chance to survive outside of the prison walls without reverting back to their criminal ways. The major problem that I see with the rehabilitation programs would be the fact that they are being cut and facilities that offer these programs are being closed. I have a very close family friend that is mandated to go through rehabilitation program from the courts yet they are sent to a facility where the rehabilitation program is not even offered due to budget cuts. The budget cuts and closing of facilities are only going to add to the over crowding population of inmates within the corrections facilities. So my recommendation is that these types of programs need to be offered at every prison and should but be affected by budget cuts. Reference: Foster, B. (2006). Corrections: The fundamentals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.