The Negative Effects Of Prison Reform

Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prison and to find other ways for a penal system to be more effective without incarceration. Going to prison may have a negative impact on inmates and their transition back into their communities. According to the National Institute of Justice (2014), about 68% of prisoners go back to prison within 3 years of their release (National institute of justice, 2014). Prisoners do not have the proper education skills and training to re-enter society. Unfortunately, society views prisoners as a criminal that would never change or improve their lives. This view results in stigma. Stigma is the judgement made by society to those who may have a negative reputation in the general public. This is turning into an epidemic because we see many people being arrested and many of those people go back to prison within a few years. This is a problem because the incarceration rate is …show more content…
This is an example of recidivism. Recidivism is another reason why prisoners have a hard time re-entering society because their mental state is on the things that happened to them in prison. Another factor that leads to recidivism is the lack of job opportunities. Ex-prisoners need to find a job within two months of their release and also need to make above the minimum wage (La Vigne, 2010), which may be hard considering the fact that the jobs might not hire an ex-criminal (Tahmincioglu, 2010). Suppose a prisoner was in jail for a federal charge for about 10 years, and they are out in the world not knowing what to do or to expect, they will most likely end back in jail because they are lost in the world, did not get the correct training and is afraid of how society views