This article looks at the environment that past offenders meet in the society once they are released and the difference in prison life and the life of freedom and the difficulties they meet as they try to adjust to the new life.
This article critically studies some of the major issues facing the re-entry policy. These issues include:
- Almost all convicts who are released per annum more than half of them will commit crimes and get rearrested again.
- The prison rates are still increasing resulting in over population on the current prisons
- Due to the increase in crime and criminals themselves, the criminal justice system and the re-entry program is being strained by it.
- The importance of the re-entry program and the challenges faced by the convicts as they try to get integrated into the society is not fully understood by the society and the justice system.
- The state cannot afford to offer vocational training to all offenders as some are rebellious to the program.
- The success that has resulted from the implantation of the program.
- Some of the changes that should be brought into the system.
- Judiciary should play a role in the program.
Prison re-entry is the use of various types of programs aimed at reintegrating past offenders into the society once they have served their sentence and released. Prisoner re-entry has become a major issue for the government resulting in a prisoner re-entry policy which was created to look after the issue of released prisoners. In each year, approximately 700,000 prisoners are released from the prisons whereby 70 percent end up getting rearrested and sent back to the prisons again. In addition, the released prisoners end up committing more crimes, a fact that has resulted in an increase of crimes all over the country and an increase of the prison population to very high numbers
The reason for this has been due to unsuccessful re-entry processes of the convicts into the society. Therefore for the policy to be successful, the policy should ensure that there is all-inclusive case management analyses whereby it shall enable the offender acquire new economical skills in order to be able to be dependent on his own while at the same time being a law abiding citizen. Due to the difficulties they face once they are released back into the society, there are numerous programs available which enable the transition from prison to freedom be a smooth one. Some of the programs involve, drug rehabilitation, vocational training and pre and post release programs, each designed to cater for the various different crimes and individual.
In addition, the government has created re-entry courts which have been designed to offer very intensive management and treatment of the offenders that starts at the initial stage when the offender is sentenced. The courts have also assisted in the management of the offenders’ behaviour, whereby the offender is made accountable for his actions and assisted in reconciling his behaviour to the expected norms of the society. However, the parole department is underfunded and therefore it cannot deliver on its mandate and as a result, making it more of a legal entity than an organized procedure or reintegrating prisoners back to the society.
Due to the challenges faced in the prisoner re-entry program, it is logic to examine the program critically and find recommendations that should be adopted into the program. The program should ensure that the vital goal for the program is to ensure that released prisoners have paid their legal responsibility to the society by serving their sentence and have shown an ability to live in harmony with the rest of the society. By directly realising a prisoner into the society, it results in a lot of contempt on him from the rest of the society. But by supervising them, the society gets a moral satisfaction that the person has rightfully earned a place back into the community since the offender is guided to live by a stipulated law under the program.
To achieve this objective the key issue for the criminal justice system and the prisoner should be similar, this is, prevention of return of unsociable behaviours. In order to achieve this each offender’s case should be analysed separately and the circumstances that may lead to relapsing back to crime established. This should be done at the commencement of the sentencing period and carry on until the person has served his sentence. At the end, the conditions set for the release of a person should be compatible to the person’s integration back into the society and not serve as hindrances to the person or allow for relapse into crime. So, they should be tailored in such a manner that reoccurrence of antisocial behaviours will be prevented and for that reason, the authority and mandate of the criminal justice system should be mobilized to attain these goals.
Finally, the Judiciary should also be made responsible for the successful running of the re-entry program since that is the point where the whole criminal justice begins. The presiding judge when sentencing a person should explain the role of the punishment to the person and the objectives that the offender should work to achieve so as to become integrated into the society once the sentencing period is over. Also the re-entry courts should be well funded in order to successfully cater for the various integration programs it runs which are very costly.
Reference list
Wilson, A. (2008). Successful prisoner re-entry: An analysis of the most important variables. National Institute of Justice, Vol. 34, 451-498.