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The image most individuals have of prison comes from how they are depicted in the media and reports. Prisons are often presented as violent institutions that are dangerous for the staff and inmates (Coyle, 2005). It is important to consider the origins and history behind prisons in order to understand what the prison’s key purpose was and how that has developed through the years. Prison after the nineteenth century had a more rehabilitative approach to the inmates that were incarcerated. Before this, however, prisons were primarily used to hold a prisoner until it was decided how he or she would be dealt with by those above them in the law, such as executing them or having them pay compensation for the crimes they committed (Wilson, 2014).
The key function of prisons in society is to hold people remanded in custody by the courts, hold sentenced offenders, maintain proper conditions for those that are in custody, prepare inmates for release and attempt to rehabilitate offenders (Davies, et al., 2015). This means that prisons have a mix of people who are already serving long and short sentences, as well as people waiting for trial in order to receive a sentence. As well as rehabilitating offenders prisons can be viewed as a form of punishment for offenders. The prison also acts as a place where dangerous individuals are kept in order to make society a safer place for the community.
Over the years prison reform has attempted to ensure that prisoners are taken care of adequately within the prison. There have been some developments to make prisons more accommodating like prison schemes that help inmates earn some qualifications and overcome drug and alcohol addictions. Despite these schemes being introduced to many prisons, according to (Dick Whitfield, 1991) there has not been much prison reform. Whitfield described entering the prison as a step back in time (Dick Whitfield, 1991) and suggested that the structures of prisons have not changed much over time. The concept of control and security have remained in prisons since their creation and prisoners are still expected to follow a strict set of rules. Although inmates have access to healthy food, proper healthcare, and daily exercise, overcrowding rates mean that the conditions prisoners often live in are poor. Cells designed for one inmate are often occupied by two or sometimes three prisoners which means the inmates do not get any time alone, have a lack of privacy and are often claustrophobic for the inmate. It also means that they are often forced to share toilets, and showers and in some cases, during lockdowns, they are required to eat three meals a day in these confined spaces (Coyle, 2005). This can lead to prisoners developing health issues due to a lack in space for them to move around in as well as developing mental health issues. In 1989, The Home Office rebuilt Feltham prison to create better-living conditions for the prisoners and to create a closer relationship with the staff and inmates.
Prison as a rehabilitating program has been unsuccessful. A study conducted in 2018 found that adults that serve a sentence of less than 12 months were found to re-offend at a rate of 64.6% compared to adults that served a sentence of more than 12 months, where the reoffending rate was 29.9% (London, 2018). This suggests that people serving a short sentence do not see prison as a deterrent to crime because of how short their sentence is. They can complete the time required in prison and then return to society and continue committing crimes. The offender may also come in contact with prisoners that have committed similar crimes but on more serious levels. They could use this connection when they leave prison to meet people that would enable them to commit further crimes that would result in their imprisonment. Due to the duration of shorter prison sentences, the individual may not be given any rehabilitating help. This means they may be placed in prison for the purpose of punishment rather than rehabilitation. The rate of reoffending amongst juvenile offenders has decreased to 38.4%. (Justice, 2019) The reason for this decrease could be that more schemes have been created in order to help young children from underprivileged backgrounds keep away from a life of crime. The creation of the Anti-Social Behaviour Order has been used as a deterrent of crime for young people as well as more police focus on at-risk youths (Sadler, 2008). This would place more focus on young people and ensure that they are staying in school and living in safe environments. Underprivileged children are vulnerable to resulting to a life of crime because they may lack the economic resources to have a good education or help provide for their family, so ensuring that they are given equal opportunities could help reduce the number of juvenile offenders. This would be an effective form of rehabilitation as opposed to prison because it would support young people whereas prison may not. The reoffending rates pose a concern because one of the key features of prison is rehabilitating offenders so that they stop committing crimes once they leave the institution. The reoffending rates suggest that this is not the case which implies the prison is not fulfilling its function of acting as a deterrent to crime.
A prison is viewed as overcrowded when the population of the inmates exceeded the number of prisoners the prison was built to hold. Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) is the prison’s form of measuring accommodation within the prison (Berman, 2013). Overcrowding in prisons is a global issue as seen in the case of Kinsella in the state of California. The prison population was found to be twice the size it should have been which led to inefficient mental and physical health care for the prisoners (Rogan, 2012). The courts in this case found that prisoners were sometimes not given their required daily time outside for exercise, an opportunity to shower, and the right to a single toilet. The overcrowding in this prison leads to a shortage in staff to inmate ratio meaning there are not enough guards to take care of all the prisoners. Prisons that are overcrowded have also been found to have prisoners with extremely poor mental health with higher suicide rates (Esther F.J.C van Ginneken, 2016). This causes many issues for the prisoners including issues like sensory deprivation due to the fact that they are locked up for long periods of time in cells that cannot hold the capacity of prisoners inhabiting it. In England and Wales, 72 prisons which make up 57% of prisons in England and Wales were overcrowded. 9 of these prisons were found to be at 150% capacity (Berman, 2013). In some cases, the population of a prison may exceed 100% population but might not be classified as overpopulated because the CNA may not think the prison has reached its full capacity. In 20034, 21.7% of prisoners shared a cell that was initially made to inhabit one prisoner (Coyle, 2005). The rate of overcrowding raises the question of if crime is increasing. The rate of reoffending suggests that crime is not decreasing which can provide an explanation for why many prisons are overcrowded. However, there are alternate explanations for this that also need to be explored. The number of criminals compared to the number of prisons could play a big role in why many prisons are overcrowded. It takes time and money to build new prisons and with a rapid increase in crimes committed, the criminal justice system has no choice but to continue sentencing criminals to prisons already at full capacity (Joshua Guetzkow, 2015). However, a counter explanation to prison overcrowding that has already been explored by theorists such as Angela Davis in Are Prisons Obsolete (Davis, 2003) suggests that in most cases when prisons are built there is an urgency to fill them. This theory suggests that black men are often incarcerated for crimes that white men would not be in order to fill the prisons. This means that the prisons are already filled with people who have committed minor crimes when people who have committed more serious crimes are committed.
An alternative to prison is community punishment. Prisoners are locked up for long periods of the day which can be viewed as a punishment rather than rehabilitation. This could explain why some prisoners after release chose to re-offend because they did not learn that what they did was wrong and should not be done again whilst in prison. Reoffending rates for shorter prison sentences suggest that they are ineffective in rehabilitating people and reducing crime. Community punishment would ensure that the individual stays integrated into their community and teaches them the value of work as an alternative to a life of crime. The individual will also learn skills that can be transferred to a workplace environment. These skills may not be acquired in a prison setting so community punishment would be a better alternative. Another reason why community punishment may be better than prison is that it gives the induvial more structure in life and teaches them the value of earning money through legal ways. Community punishments can also help show the public that the government is actively trying to rehabilitate people and reduce crime rather than just lock them away. The Local Crime Community Sentence allows the public to share their opinion on the probation tasks given to offenders and how long they should be on probation (Allen, 2008). Including the public in community punishment schemes was proven to be effective as half of the members of the public included had originally thought the offender should go to prison but later changed their minds and voted that community punishments would be more effective in rehabilitating the offender (Allen, 2008). This is more effective than prison because it allows the public to engage with the offender instead of keeping the offender isolated away from the public. This could help the public understand why the offender committed the crime they did as well as allow the offender to understand the impact their crime had on society. A recent poll taken from Smart Justice (Hanks, 2007) found that the public believed that for non-violent crimes, especially those that were drug-related, community punishment or drug rehabilitative programs would be better than being sent to prison. This was especially the case for women of young children as neither the children nor the mother would benefit from spending time in prison apart from each other. Despite this, there are some issues with community punishment since it is not a concept widely agreed upon within the United States. Maloney et al argued probation as a brand needed to be retired (Gwen Robinson, 2013). This statement is suggesting that the concept of traditional probation is not agreed to be as useful as a prison and should be reconsidered.
Prisoners are locked up for long periods of time and deprived of many basic human rights. This can lead to poor mental health for the prisoners. If the prison staff fail to understand how poor mental health and learning difficulties can affect an inmate`s behavior it can be detrimental to their health. The healthcare in prisons has improved in recent years but there has not been a focus on mental health. A study conducted in prisons found that 64% of sentenced men and 50% of sentenced women had a personality disorder. Around 23 of the prisoners used illegal drugs in the recent years before their arrest and approximately 35 of male and 25 of female prisoners confessed to drinking alcohol on a dangerous level (Coyle, 2005). There were also high levels of drug use among prisoners, half of the prisoners confessed to having used illegal drugs whilst committing an offense to make money for more drugs. This demonstrates that many people had mental health and substance abuse issues before going to prison. 1992 and onwards there were 906 suicides committed by prisoners whilst in custody. 94 prisoners committed suicide in 2004 and of those 94, 13 were women. (Coyle, 2005) From these figures, we can conclude that there is insufficient mental health support for prisoners, especially for male prisoners. This poses as a concern due to the fact that prisoners’ mental health is likely to deteriorate when they are locked up and isolated away from their friends and family. It could be especially difficult for first-time offenders and remand prisoners as they have never experienced the prison environment and waiting on trials to decide whether they will be staying in prison for longer. In 2014, 20% of suicides committed within the prisons were by remand prisoners whereas only 14% were committed by the prisoner population (Esther F.J.C van Ginneken, 2016). This further emphasizes how vulnerable prisoners are when they first enter the prison population and the lack of mental health support they receive during this early period of incarceration. However, despite these figures, the prison system has made changes in attempts to reduce poor mental health and substance abuse issues for its prisoners. This has included educating prison staff, so they are trained and know how to prevent prisoners from self-harming. There has also been an increase in rehabilitation programs for prisoners that suffer from substance abuse. The creation of these programs has led to an 11.9% decrease in drug abuse (Coyle, 2005) which shows they have been useful. The reduction of substance abuse in prisoners can also lead to a decrease in poor mental health as the prisoners are living healthier lives. Inmates with learning difficulties are often mistreated in prisons due to prison staff having a lack of understanding of the inmate`s disability. It is common that these disabilities often go unrecognized, which can make it more difficult for inmates to understand and process what the procedure is in court, different prison regimes, or tasks assigned to them by the guards (Talbot, 2007). This poses an issue because they may be mistreated by guards in the pretense that they are behaving disobediently and could be punished. The lack of support for learning disabilities in prison would also make it difficult for the inmate to take part in rehabilitation schemes that would benefit them in the future.
To conclude, the function of a prison as a place where criminals are held can be viewed is more accurate compared to a prison as a rehabilitative institution even though the prison should primarily be a place of rehabilitation. Although there are schemes in place to help prisoners, they are not the most effective in reducing crime. However, the rehabilitation programs in place to help inmates overcome drug and alcohol addictions can be useful if they are implemented properly within the prison and made accessible. The prison would need to introduce more schemes that assist prisoners during the time they spend in prison and after their release to ensure that they do not re-offend.
Bibliography
- Allen, R., 2008. Changing public attitudes to crime and punishment – Building confidence in community penalties. The Journal of Community and Criminal Justice, 55(4), pp. 389-400.
- Berman, G., 2013. Prison population statistics. House of Commons Library.
- Coyle, A., 2005. What happens inside prisons? In: Understanding Prisons: key issues in policy and practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press, pp. 104-132.
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