Is prison about rehabilitation or retribution?

Question

And if it's about both ... should there be different types of prisons?

Answer 1

I don't think prison offers either one, it's simply for incarceration. The vast majority of prisoners get out and are not rehabilitated and how can you have retribution on someone that feels no remorse?

Answer 2

It is suppose to be rehabilitating but I don't think it does in a lot of cases. A lot of the teenagers or young adults see it as a trophy, 'I've been to prison I'm hard'! It isn't a walk in the park but prison's are so overcrowded and so short staffed they don't get time to rehabilitate the prisoners properly! Someone close to me has just come out of prison and he had to rescue prison wardens from other prisoners before they got to violent. So I can't see how they are rehabilitating. I don't think there needs to be any more different types of prisons. They need to build more if they are going to put people away for stupid offences like no payment of fines etc..

Answer 3

Prisons used to be about punishment and rehabilitation but in recent years prisoners have been given so many rights and basic priviliges ie televisions, dvd's ect. There is no longer as much a deterent as before, given the choice of a cardboard box in a cold wet alley or a warm bed, three meals a day, entertainment ,education or work if you want it - think about it .

Im not saying we need to treat prisoners as animals but there has to be something to be said about american chaingang type workparties, hard labour , This country has plenty of jobs which would be suitable from roads to general enviroment cleanup , and the idea of bright pink overalls with prisoner on them does stop breakouts. The entire prison system needs overhauled with a these things in mind

Answer 4

I'd like to think that prison is more about rehabilitation thesedays than retribution. I know many prisons work holistically with offenders to address offending behaviour, particularly in young offenders institutes because the money spent on working with them can save money in the long term if they don't offend.

Obviously there are individuals that won't ever be rehabilitated or are merely a danger to the public so they are locked up for our safety.

Answer 5

Unfortunately, neither. This, I believe, is due to the "freedoms" which are afforded our prisoners. Honestly speaking, prisoners live better than those people who are law-abiding citizens. They do not fear crime being committed against them as they are in the safety of the prisons; they do not have to worry about and/or work for their next meal; they do nothing all day which affords them sufficient time to conceive of and do other things which are themselves illicit like beating each other up or using the prisons to sell their drugs. I think we should consider revising the rights afforded to prisoners and be not unmindful of the fact that they are not in prison to enjoy a vacation from their everyday lives but are actually there to serve sentences for the crimes they have been proved in a court of law to have committed. They are just there in prisons on an all expenses paid vacation indoors. However, I am not taking anything away from those who come out really rehabilitated individuals...

Answer 6

This question highlights yet another reason for building morre prisons and recruiting more prison officers. To my mind prison is not about prisoners being called 'Mr', being given TVs in cells etc. It is about punishment and it is about education, both academic and moral. Without any attempt to address this, there is little hope that any future benefits will be gained by prisoners, and is therefore a complete waste of taxpayers' money. Of course there are those who are so hard bitten or sunk in depravity that there is no hope for but, by and large, the majority would benefit from a structured system such as this. Let's have less television and more attempts to teach them skills that they can use outside and get their lives together.

Answer 7

Prisons were once about being a place where those who broke serious laws were placed. However, now they are used as a means of social control, a place to dump the hundreds of thousands of people who deliberately or accidentally break the law. The laws are unjust and increasingly being written to promote the interests of for-profit prisons. And as a person gets deeper into the system, it is less likely that they will ever break free of the nightmare. It's all wrong. What happens when someone breaks a law when they are young and gets sent to prison. While in prison, a guard takes a fancy to them, and starts supplying them with heroin. As soon as the person is addicted, the price to be paid is sex. After three solid years of this, and seven years in prison, the person is released, completely strung out on heroin. Within two months he is back in prison because he tests positive for drugs. He does two years probation and is released. He is broken, because he was repeated sodomized as a child by a child molester, and also by a guard during his prison stint. He tests positive for drugs, because he is self-medicating, and because he is a junkie, a disease thrust upon him by his captors. This vicious cycle goes on for 16 years, and he's now 34, a beautiful soul caught in a nightmare. He paid for his crimes long ago, but the cycle of state sponsored incarceration will not let him go. This is what prison has created. You Republicans who think it's his fault because he couldn't stay clean, I hope when your kids get strung out on painkillers, i hope they get repeatedly raped by guards and beat up because they are weak. I hope it goes on and on, so much so your lives are broken because your beautiful child deserves it. This is what prison does.

Answer 8

not all prisoners re-offend. It should be about rehabilitation regardless of the crime committed, else your no better than them.. sort the prisons out get rid off bias prison officers then maybe there's hope, cage an animal and inflict abuse the minute you let them lose they're going to bite. Prison's invoke monster's and all monster's are created.

Answer 9

It should be about rehabilitation. Why send people to prison, put them back out on the streets, and then send them back to prison? It makes no sense. While they're in jail, let's rehabilitate them and make them better citizens.

Answer 10

Good question. I think we need to completely rethink the whole concept of prison. Too many people are locked up for the long reasons, such as drugs issues. Unfortunately, those who make the decisions are heart scared of the media - Daily Mail etc.