When looking at factors leading to recidivism, scholars consistently point to two factors that are instrumental in influencing the outcome of a newly released prisoner. The first factor is social bonds. Social bonds can mean family or community ties. The Second is employment. However, the way that the prison systems is set up, a barrier exists, preventing prisoners from accessing the opportunities to cultivate relationships and employment opportunities, thereby increasing the rate of recidivism.
This paper aims to look at these factors in depth, as well as look closely at the barriers prisoners face when it comes to reintegration, and how overall the prison system fails to provide prisoners with the necessary tools needed to be rehabilitated. …show more content…
However, correctional facilities contract out their phone services, meaning phone companies will compete with one another to obtain the phone contract. This results in higher prices, due to the fact that the correctional facility makes a percentage of the money made from any phone conversations made by the inmates. As a result, the collect calls made from prisons, are on average 20 times more expensive than regular calls. Compounded with the time-limited aspect of the calls, forcing the family member to accept several charges over the course of one conversation, this results in an average added cost of over $200 monthly. For a family member to call their imprisoned kin only once a month for a year, they are likely to pay over $2400, an unfeasible amount for someone living below the poverty line. Racial groups that are at an economic disadvantage are less likely to be in contact with family members in prison, because of the economic hardship placed upon them by doing so. This results in 73 to 85 percent of prisoners falling into the non-visited category. Prisoners, on average are only visited slightly more than two times during the course of incarceration. To see a statistical significance in the results of visitation on a reduction in the likelihood of recidivism, prisoners must have sustained visitation throughout their sentence. Thus, considering impoverished Americans are eight times more likely to be imprisoned, and since African Americans are the most likely to receive a prison sentence for committing the same crime as their Caucasian counterpart, it becomes apparent that African Americans are placed at a disadvantage. In the current bureaucratic system that is America’s prisons, poor, and likely African American people are placed at a stark disadvantage. Without the means necessary to maintain sustained contact with social ties,
This paper aims to look at these factors in depth, as well as look closely at the barriers prisoners face when it comes to reintegration, and how overall the prison system fails to provide prisoners with the necessary tools needed to be rehabilitated. …show more content…
However, correctional facilities contract out their phone services, meaning phone companies will compete with one another to obtain the phone contract. This results in higher prices, due to the fact that the correctional facility makes a percentage of the money made from any phone conversations made by the inmates. As a result, the collect calls made from prisons, are on average 20 times more expensive than regular calls. Compounded with the time-limited aspect of the calls, forcing the family member to accept several charges over the course of one conversation, this results in an average added cost of over $200 monthly. For a family member to call their imprisoned kin only once a month for a year, they are likely to pay over $2400, an unfeasible amount for someone living below the poverty line. Racial groups that are at an economic disadvantage are less likely to be in contact with family members in prison, because of the economic hardship placed upon them by doing so. This results in 73 to 85 percent of prisoners falling into the non-visited category. Prisoners, on average are only visited slightly more than two times during the course of incarceration. To see a statistical significance in the results of visitation on a reduction in the likelihood of recidivism, prisoners must have sustained visitation throughout their sentence. Thus, considering impoverished Americans are eight times more likely to be imprisoned, and since African Americans are the most likely to receive a prison sentence for committing the same crime as their Caucasian counterpart, it becomes apparent that African Americans are placed at a disadvantage. In the current bureaucratic system that is America’s prisons, poor, and likely African American people are placed at a stark disadvantage. Without the means necessary to maintain sustained contact with social ties,