Correcting the System: Servitude & Rehabilitation
As with most countries and societies, the concept of correctional facilities is an important element when considering the need for a rule of law which is understood across all aspects of society. While there can be different correctional models applied, the majority relate to the removal of perpetrators of crime from society for a specific period of time and the removal or substantial diminishing of the privileges which are available to them. While the intentions of such systems can be considered laudable, they have often become areas whereby systematic abuse and neglect can endure which prompts the need for an evaluation of their effectiveness and ways in which they can be improved in order to benefit society as a whole. It is clear that, as the analysis in this paper will show that there is a need to provide a comprehensive, transparent, and open discussion about the concepts of rehabilitation in order to truly deliver a functional correctional system. While correctional systems and institutions had existed previously, little had changed in terms of the methodology employed by the time of U.S. independence for example but there was an understanding being developed that served to highlight the importance of rehabilitation as part of the duty of the state. This is typified through the type of statement released in 1870 by the National Prison Association, later to become the American Correctional Association, ‘the treatment of criminals by society is for the protection of society. But since such treatment is directed to the criminal rather than the crime, its great object should be his moral regeneration. The state has not discharged its whole duty to the criminal when it has punished him, nor even when it has reformed him. Having raised him up, it is the further duty (of the state) to aid in holding him up’ (American Correctional Association, 2014). It is this underlying requirement for rehabilitation and reformation to form part of a comprehensive correctional system which can be evaluated against an analysis in terms of the practices and approaches that have defined certain eras. The fragmented nature of the U.S, at least in its formative years created massive differences in the way in which correctional systems were implemented. Each state, city, and county practised their own laws in order to determine how local prisons and jails were operated. While this allowed for a wide variety of ideas to be tried across such a diverse correctional implementation it also meant that there was no uniformity in the progression of more humane practices in certain states and municipalities while others still carried out what was termed as ‘ancient abuses’ by Beaumont and Tocqueville (Stohr, Walsh, & Hemmens, 2009). One of the fundamental reasons for this discrepancy in the evolution of correctional institutions from the era of physical punishments such as stocks and whips to the relocation and housing of offenders was financial. The cost of both building and operating prisons and jails could be seen as being prohibitively expensive, and this could have a significant impact on the allocation of state funds so it was often seen as more economical to rely on conventional means of justice and punishment rather than enforcing the correctional system of which we are all aware (Hanser, 2012). By way of comparison the costs are still relatively expensive for today’s correctional institutions and although there are significant variances between different states, and the type of inmates being housed (with women and juveniles representing a smaller percentage of the prison population which would therefore necessitate a higher cost for their inclusion) even one of the lowest costs is significant. Georgia’s Department for Corrections for example outlines the cost for a minimum security bed of being $31,675 to be built with an additional $14,016 to be operated (Stohr, Walsh, & Hemmens, 2009).