The Funding of Rehabilitation Programs in the Federal Prison System of America and Their Effect on Prisoners
Prison rehabilitation can be defined as the re-integration into society of a person who has been convicted of crime, to counter habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. (Rehabilitation Center., n.d.) These rehabilitation programs can take the form of educational, artistic, recreational and drug abuse programs. Many prisons in the U.S. don’t fund a substantial quality of rehabilitation programs even though they have proven to be highly effective in reintegrating prisoners to the outside world; seen through a lowered recidivism rate in those prisons that have implemented them.
America is facing a huge problem …show more content…
When most of the prisoners behind bars are struggling with drug abuse, a priority should be getting them the help they need; without help the perpetual cycle of reoffending will continue. Over 65% of inmates are struggling with a substance abuse addiction. The most disturbing part of this statistic is that only 11% of those get the help that they need to recover (Sack, D 2014). This leaves the rest of the inmates still struggling when they are released back into society. In fact, new guidelines have begun retroactive releases of nonviolent criminals such as drug addicts. Which is great, however they are leaving prison in a worse condition than they came in, putting them at a high rick of reoffending. The Texas Department of Corrections has employed new reforms to reduce their prisoner population, one of them being drug treatment. They have been proven to be successful in helping prisoners overcome drug addiction and reenter society as a new person. The Federal Bureau of Prisons also has a drug program known as the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP). It has helped several thousand inmates maintain sobriety. (Ferranti, S., n.d.) Becoming drug free is tough when there isn’t a compassionate network of people to support them; therefore it is important for prisoners to be introduced to these programs while incarcerated. An experiment was conducted in Sweden that was published in the Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology & Crime Prevention, a peer-reviewed journal of scientific work, where 741 prisoners were compared to prisoners with the same statistical likelihood of reoffending. The results showed that the prisoners who received drug treatment prior to their release show a significantly lower amount of re-offense than the group who did not. (Holmberg, S., & Öberg, J., 2012) Implementing drug treatment prior to their release can reduce the
Prison rehabilitation can be defined as the re-integration into society of a person who has been convicted of crime, to counter habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. (Rehabilitation Center., n.d.) These rehabilitation programs can take the form of educational, artistic, recreational and drug abuse programs. Many prisons in the U.S. don’t fund a substantial quality of rehabilitation programs even though they have proven to be highly effective in reintegrating prisoners to the outside world; seen through a lowered recidivism rate in those prisons that have implemented them.
America is facing a huge problem …show more content…
When most of the prisoners behind bars are struggling with drug abuse, a priority should be getting them the help they need; without help the perpetual cycle of reoffending will continue. Over 65% of inmates are struggling with a substance abuse addiction. The most disturbing part of this statistic is that only 11% of those get the help that they need to recover (Sack, D 2014). This leaves the rest of the inmates still struggling when they are released back into society. In fact, new guidelines have begun retroactive releases of nonviolent criminals such as drug addicts. Which is great, however they are leaving prison in a worse condition than they came in, putting them at a high rick of reoffending. The Texas Department of Corrections has employed new reforms to reduce their prisoner population, one of them being drug treatment. They have been proven to be successful in helping prisoners overcome drug addiction and reenter society as a new person. The Federal Bureau of Prisons also has a drug program known as the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP). It has helped several thousand inmates maintain sobriety. (Ferranti, S., n.d.) Becoming drug free is tough when there isn’t a compassionate network of people to support them; therefore it is important for prisoners to be introduced to these programs while incarcerated. An experiment was conducted in Sweden that was published in the Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology & Crime Prevention, a peer-reviewed journal of scientific work, where 741 prisoners were compared to prisoners with the same statistical likelihood of reoffending. The results showed that the prisoners who received drug treatment prior to their release show a significantly lower amount of re-offense than the group who did not. (Holmberg, S., & Öberg, J., 2012) Implementing drug treatment prior to their release can reduce the