prison is for (re)habilitation. or at least it should be. and i say habilitation as opposed to rehabilitation because if you rehabilitate a con to what he/she was before, they're no better off. prison should be about habilitating someone, and making their re-entry into society a smoother transition.
don't get me wrong, i dont want to be all buddy buddy with cons, and i do think that the time served in prison should be "hard" time. but the fact of the matter is that of all the people that we have imprisoned in america today (county, state and federal), over 70% of them will be released at some point. this includes petty thieves, rapists, murderers and everyone else under the sun. 25 years to life does not usually mean life as most would assume.
we've tried harsher punishments on just about everything. and crime isnt going down. since prisons were instituted in america, there has never been a year where the inmate population has decreased, even with all the people that get released. they should not have normal luxuries or amenities that are enjoyed by those of us outside the walls, but they should have a civil time in there.
simple things such as providing education for inmates to earn GEDs go a long way. if a con is released, and never had a high school diploma in the first place, and is now a con, how are we to possibly think that they will not go back to a life of crime? there are plenty of places willing to hire ex-cons, but a diploma/GED is simply a must. even something as crazy as *ghasp* college courses could/should be offered. make them pay for something like that, make them put that measly prison salary to good use rather than cigarettes. i laugh when i hear people so opposed to this that they bring up the argument "so if i want my child to get a free college education i should just send them to prison??" absolutely not. nobody in their right mind would even think that that is a viable option. so why is that a good argument?
the fact is that you can't keep everyone locked up forever, so if you know they're going to be released, why not give them a chance to make it legit when they're out? cause if they don't make it, they're going to go back to a life of crime, and sure, they'll just end up in prison for a few more years, and you don't have to worry about them for a while again, but what about that day when you or someone you know is the victim.
so in conclusion, i guess i'm just saying that people that would clearly have a vendetta against them (snitches, rapists, molesters etc) should be separated in prison. if they're going to die, fine, but it shouldn't be up to another inmate to decide. and while someone is in there, simple tools to help them post-release go a lot farther than a lot of other activities that go on.
urple:
