prisoner rehabilitation
prisoner rehabilitation
A criminologist's argument that prisons have failed to rehabilitate prisoners.
© Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
DAVID SCOTT: The reform prisons of the 1800s, with their new emphasis on rehabilitation, were invented to destroy the criminal personality and to generate new life and a new law-abiding identity. Predicated upon violence, the prisons proved successful in terms of creating suffering and death, but it failed miserably in terms of creating new life.
Prisons have never worked as places of rehabilitation. Transformations require voluntary consent and cannot be undertaken within a coercive environment. Prisons destroy family bonds rather than create new connections. It is impossible to teach people to live in freedom whilst in captivity.
Prisoner reoffending rates are enormous, with approximately half of the prison population reoffending within one year of release. Self-inflicted deaths in prisons in 2016 reached record high numbers. And across 2017, we saw a large number of prison disturbances.
Prisons are both highly regulated institutions but also places which are filled with empty time. Drugs distort time. Taking drugs can be like a chemical comfort. It can be a way of helping people get through the day. Prisons are places of loss, loneliness, isolation, and alienation. The taking of drugs in prison is further evidence that prisons do not work.
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Prisons have never worked as places of rehabilitation. Transformations require voluntary consent and cannot be undertaken within a coercive environment. Prisons destroy family bonds rather than create new connections. It is impossible to teach people to live in freedom whilst in captivity.
Prisoner reoffending rates are enormous, with approximately half of the prison population reoffending within one year of release. Self-inflicted deaths in prisons in 2016 reached record high numbers. And across 2017, we saw a large number of prison disturbances.
Prisons are both highly regulated institutions but also places which are filled with empty time. Drugs distort time. Taking drugs can be like a chemical comfort. It can be a way of helping people get through the day. Prisons are places of loss, loneliness, isolation, and alienation. The taking of drugs in prison is further evidence that prisons do not work.
SPEAKER: Get more from the Open University. Check out the links on screen now.