by Rob X - defenestrator prison correspondent
The concept of rehabilitation versus punishment has raged within the American Penal community since its inception. The last decade has seen the concept of punishment and retribution all but extinguish the concept of rehabilitation from prisons in the United States. Department of Corrections across the country acknowledge that within the last decade emphasis has been placed on punishing prisoners for the crimes they committed against society instead of rehabilitating them so that they can one day rejoin society. Ironically, it is not the Department of Corrections that supported the complete removal of rehabilitation programs from the prisons. Experienced prison officials concede that rehabilitation is possible within prisons. The push for punishment over rehabilitation was pushed by politicians catering to a public that was frustrated with rising crime rates and expressed crime as their number one concern. Politicians, uninterested in addressing the social problems that bred and contributed to criminal activity, decided to pursue a simple course that would create the impression that they were doing something concrete against rising crime rates. All across the country state legislatures passed harsh sentencing laws that increased the punishments for committing certain crimes. Three Strikes and You re Out laws were passed, crimes eligible for the death sentence were increased and truth in sentencing laws were passed making it mandatory that prisoners serve over 85% of their sentence. The politicians who gutted rehabilitation programs from the prison system did not concern themselves with the quality of prisoner that would be released from prison because these prisoners wouldn t be returning to the politicians neighborhoods. These ex-prisoners would be returning to the inner city Black and Latino communities.
The consequences of these harsh sentencing guidelines and laws was more people being imprisoned in an already overcrowded prisons, teeming with prisoners from the War on Drugs in the 80 s, became even more overcrowded in the 90 s. This rapidly expanding prison population resulted in states being forced to construct numerous new prisons to accommodate the expanding prison population. In Pennsylvania alone the amount of prisons in the state expanded from 12 in 1991 to 29 in 2003. The prison population increased from 20,000 in 1993 to over 40,000 in 2003. In order to maintain this massive expansion, the Department of Corrections had to devote a significant portion of its budget not to rehabilitation but to security concerns and maintenance of prisons. State legislatures gutted funds slated for rehabilitation to cover the hiring of new guards. Today the motto of the Department of Corrections is Care, Custody, and Control. Rehabilitation does not even factor into the D.C.C. s operation. Prisons are so overcrowded only bare bones educational and vocational programs are available. Due to the prevailing public and political climate, emphasizing punishment over rehabilitation, it is no longer a question of does rehabilitation work; it is a question of does rehabilitation have a prominent role in American prisons. Rehabilitation has proven to be the most effective tool in preventing prisoners from returning to prison and, while not 100%, it has proven more successful than other measures. Has the death penalty prevented more murders? Texas executes more prisoners than any other state yet Houston, Texas has the 4th highest murder rate in the nation. Rehabilitation works, it is just expensive and time consuming, two factors which work against it in a society dominated by politicians who want immediate results to gloat over and a public that is accustomed to 15 minute solutions.
Another factor working against the concept of rehabilitation is recidivism. Maintaining a revolving door policy is profitable for the state because it sustains a massive prison industrial complex. It creates jobs. Another overlooked aspect of the prison industrial complex is it keeps hundreds of thousands of prisoners and ex-prisoners out of the job market. The mass imprisonment of people within America maintains single digit unemployment rates. The former Justice Minister of Germany put this into a great perspective. During a 2002 interview she was asked why Germany has an unemployment rate of 13% compared to America s unemployment rate of 6%. She responded by commenting that if Germany had 2 million people behind bars its unemployment rate would also be in the single digits. There was immediate outrage in Washington over Germany s Justice Minister s statements but she exposed a phenomenon that has been relatively overlooked in America. During times of economic turmoil or recession the prison industrial complex has been an instrument used to maintain relatively low unemployment rates. During times of economic uncertainty the government won t find or create a job for you but it will find or create a prison cell for you. Viewing rehabilitation within the American prison system from this perspective, it is no wonder why rehabilitation is an extinct concept. Young Black, Latino, and poor urban males, and increasingly females, are the capital that drives and sustains the prison complex. As long as prisons are for profits, humans will be expendable commodities whose only purpose within the system is to process through it like cash being deposited in the bank. Rehabilitation can work, given the chance prisoners will change themselves. Unfortunately, in today's prison system rehabilitation doesn t exist- while prisons exist only to serve the bottom line.
Robert X. Holbrook #BL-5140
SCI Greene
175 Progress Dr.
Waynesburg, PA 15370
