do criminals need help rather than punishment?

Answer 1

Sometimes. This is neither a liberal nor conservative position and the answer is not political. There are 3 purposes for a imprisonment: 1) rehabilitation; 2) protection of society and 3) deterrence. Some, although not many, people come out of prison changed for the better and never re-offend. Others come out only to have learned how to be better criminals. Prison can rehabilitate individuals who commit property criminals because of alcoholism, addictions or desperation. I watch a lminor case prosecuted last week where a young mother on disability stole $23 worth of food to feed her child. This individual was not sent to jail, but she would be a perfect candidate for rehabilitation. She has a chronic mental disability, but could be taught job skills. Addicts and alcoholics can recover through honestly working a 12 step program. Other criminals are purely lazy and have no desire to earn an honest living. Still others are sociopaths and psychopaths and literally lack a conscience. Society needs to be protected from them forever. They generally cannot be rehabilitated. The punishment aspect of prisons may make some members of society feel better, but has no other purpose. A good pre-sentence screening will note offenders who have the best chance of rehabilitation. Who is least likely to be rehabilitated? Sex offenders of any nature. More than 25 years ago I was appointed by the court to represent an habitual offender. He never committed a crime when he was sober. He would have been a perfect candidate for "help" rather than treatment if he was willing to quit drinking. I don't know what ever happened to him, but I've never forgotten what a nice guy he was--when he was sober. EDIT: I just read the previous answers. I'm amazed at the number of people who think this is a political issue. It is not! It's a psychological/sociological issue which has been well studied. To others, I must also disagree with the broad statement that criminals are "made not born." That is only true in some cases. Other criminals are born with a mental disability that makes them completely unconcerned about the rights and needs of others.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

When someone is arrested, charged, tried and convicted of a crime they are sentenced according to sentencing guidelines for the kind of crime they were convicted of. Now the corrections officers, criminal psychologists, and social workers are supposed to "assess" the offender and order prison programs that are designed to help the prisoner to become "prosocial" instead of antisocial. These programs cost a huge amount of money but the outcome is meant to help the offender to turn their lives around - and become a law-abiding person. Corrections officers are the lowest law enforcement officer on the rung of the career ladder. They usually have no education above the high school diploma and some have had criminal encounters with the law enforcement community. Corrections officers are basically mean humans and they do not consider the prisoner anything more than an animal. These kind of employees are being trained and/or released from duty because it is now known that similar bad behavior does not help the prisoner. The criminal justice system wants to have ZERO recidivism as do the citizens. To get this, they now know they must rehabilitate the offender.

Answer 4

It appears that in societies where criminals currently get help rather than punishment, they are far less likely to re-offend and usually become productive members of society. Many Scandinavian countries have exceptional rehabilitation schemes for criminals and they do work. They're certainly more promising than locking people up and throwing away the key, which really offers solutions for no-one, not the criminals, nor the tax-payers who have to fund them whilst in prison.

It's surprising, isn't it, how quick people are to condemn others who've made a mistake? And who hasn't made one or two mistakes in their life? Nothing liberal about the thinking, but plenty of logic. If you treat people with contempt, they return it, multiplied by ten. If you treat them with respect, they start to see they are worthy of it and act accordingly.

Answer 5

Criminals are selfish, self centered people who want what they want when they want it. They are willing to hurt other people to get it.

They deserve punishment. Statistics prove that rehabilitation does not work. Prison does not need to be a kinder, gentler place. It needs to be a very unpleasant place so they don't want to come back. And it needs to be a place where they work long hours of hard labor like many honest law abiding Americans do. Learning to work might do them some good and might keep them too tired to casue too much trouble in prison.

Answer 6

in most of the cases not necessary. we must take their sociological, economical and other conditions which made them into consideration before punishing them. all criminals are not born. the persons with hard core criminal mentality must be kept in imprisonment and for the rest we must help them to get out of thier frustrated condition with the help of psychiatrists. nothing is impossible if attempted with sinceority to bring a change in thier minds. punishment must touch thier heart and soul not their physic.

Answer 7

They need fear, less rights and a better corrections system.

Getting punished for a crime is a joke. They're given 100s of chances at probation, programs, fines and at a last resort, they're locked up.
Being locked up, they're allowed to lay around 24 hours a day on the taxpayer dime. They don't have to attend classes for education, viloent offender management should be made mandatory. Non h.s. graduate should be made to attend classes while locked up and sentenced to finish the classes upon release if not completed while serving time to society.
YES, having your freedom removed is hurtful and hard, unless you don't care and have adapted to being imprisoned. Being forced to CONTRIBUTE to society instead of being fully allowed to exploit and be a detriment to society is what their punishment should be. But the "you can't make me" attitude is that of a 2 year old. These criminals should be treated the same if they act the same.
I'm tired of bustin' my *** to pay for their meals and lazy *** to sleep in jail all day.

Answer 8

That's a good question. I would say Yes under these conditions. If this is a first time offense and that it was not violent. Everyone deserves a second chance. Except those who hurt or kill someone. If after the first offense, they commit another crime, lock them up and throw away the key.

Answer 9

Depends. It takes years to change the fundamentals of most people, so you have to lock them up. Whether you call that punishment or just preventing them from committing further crimes is a matter of semantics.

Answer 10

criminals are not born, they are made by the society as criminals.
the law is made for protected the people,
In real term punishment is also a help.
every human being have right to seek help from the society.
criminals not expectational person.