Prison Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Prison - Essay Example The cynicism about rehabilitation springs from three sets of concerns, all reasonable, up till now all paralyzing if accepted without thought. The first reason for skepticism is the fear that people who have demonstrated their contempt for society's laws may continue to flout them, even after they are better prepared to survive as law-abiding citizens. Preparation cannot change the mind of someone committed to crime. (Mair, 2004) However one might also squabble that without the preparation-educational, emotional, and psychological-to survive without crime, even someone committed to reform will have a hard time changing his life. Preparation is neither a panacea nor a guarantee, but it makes reform possible. A second reason for skepticism is the adversarial environment of the prison. Prisoners are confined involuntarily, and prison staff is the ones keeping them there. The resulting bitterness, resentment, wariness, and contempt would seem to preclude the trust and mutual respect necessary for effective teaching, supervising, or counseling. Yet those who have studied prisons, or other social organizations, know that it is not impossible for opponents to work together for some mutual advantage, even if their mutual suspicion never quite disappears. If programs meant to prepare prisoners for release are beneficial to both staff and prisoners, one might see cooperation begin to develop. An implementation problem, of the kind that political scientists and public policy scholars have studied extensively in the last twenty-five years. Reframing the failures of rehabilitation as implementation failures leads us to see that staff and prisoners base their support for and participation in programs on criteria different from what most policymakers or advocates might believe. Staff and prisoners work with and participate in programs not because of their long-term rehabilitative benefits, but because programs can satisfy their immediate, prison-centered needs. Their interest is in programs that keep prisoners busy and interested, with incentives that are valuable, given the context of a particular prison. They also look for programs that are congruent with the values that staff uses to govern their interaction with prisoners and their understanding of their jobs. Programs are part of a particular style of prison management: one that encourages accommodation between staff and prisoners, as opposed to group loyalty. In prisons where existing patterns of staff interaction embrace this kind of interaction, programs will be welcomed. But in prisons that do not, staff will reject programs or attempt to subvert them. (McGuire, 2002) The prison environment structures the extent to which staff understands policy and both staff and prisoners decide to cooperate with it. Implementing programs successfully, therefore, requires an understanding of how the organizational context of each individual prison will interact with the written policies and provisions that govern rehabilitation programs. This understanding recasts the debate about whether prisoners must first be 'amenable' to