Employment after prison

To begin, I will take quotes stated by my opponent and rebuttal against them on why employment after prison is needed. My opponents quotes shall be italicized to easier identification for my opponent and voters for this debate. However this has nothing to do with the fact that they are unemployed. For example, If a white man was unemployed does it automatically give him nothing to do and therefore cause him to perform a crime of some sort and be sentenced to prison? Of course not, why? because he is in a surrounding that is safe and far from illegal activities Of course not, why? because he is in a surrounding that is safe and far from illegal activities. . My opponent agrees with my previous statement that the reason why crime occurs is because of no "distraction" being placed upon the criminal from doing illegal activities. I'm glad we can agree on that, but my opponent attempts to rebuttal with a scenario about an unemployed while man. Its true he probably will not result in crime;however, he wasn't in prison for a period of time. After being released from prison, the individual is a different person than before with his or her background history following them around for the rest of their life. My opponent can argue that this cannot affect their employment, when it does. According to National Institute of Justice (1): "More than 80 percent of the statutes operate as a denial of employment opportunities". 80% of job applicants get denied, and results in their unemployment and why they result into crime. My opponent continues on with his or her rebuttal that the reason why the white man scenario has this benefit is because of living away from crime. I like how my opponent brings this argument up, yet has no evidence to support this claim. I do however have evidence to support my argument on how employment reduces chances of crime within the individual. Acoording to the article "Research of Reentry and Employment" (2): "Being employed substantially reduced the risk of all recidivism outcomes". The article further states that in 2008, 66% of prisoners employed after prison time did not do any sort of illegal activity compared to those who failed to find a job and resulted back into prison. The reasoning for this can be said under Robert Merton's Strain Theory (3), which is: "The theory states that social structures may pressure citizens to commit crimes". Examples include not having any money to support oneself, which brings desperation of commiting crime. Has this been proven? Actually, yes because in 2008 (4) this theory was tested on deliquants in juvenile camp. They asked a series of questions and the number one reason they commited a crime was because of not having any money to support themselves. At least with the ability to get a job, without being denied for having criminal background history, these recently released individuals can fix up their life. Criminals freed should not be employed because of their inability to cope with the outside world. Criminals especially those who have been given long sentences spend their days in a routine schedule. Meal times, free times, lights out have all been routine and has been that way for them for years. When they are freed they are unable to cope with that new-found freedom. If they are unable to cope with just living in the outside how are they to cope with the stresses of having a job that even normal people have a hard time doing. For this rebuttal, I like to please refer back to a statistic I brought up. The statistic was that the highest type of crime in prison was smoking an ounce of marijuana, or doing any sort of illegal drug usage. The charges for that, averagely, is either having to pay a $1000 fine or 1 year of incarceration (5). That is not very long ideally, and if we go even further on drug related crimes the penalty for drug abuse, according to the website "Drug Abuse" (6), is around 20-30 months. That is about two years, and what my opponent claims as "Unable to cope" is over exaggerated because a prisoner wil be able to cope after a year or two from prison. That truly isn't a long time, and those who did get long term sentences are mostly there for more violent crimes. Which is actually very low because only 13% of prisoners are murders, rapists, or very violent (7). In sum, my opponent argues that prisoners are unable to cope with the outside world; however, the majority of crimes are for drug offences. The punishment is only for a year or two, which should not make a huge amount of difference similarily to military troops being deployed for a few years. No psychological effect should cause true punishment because what my opponent is referring to are very violent crimes. These crimes are petty, and will not have a long sentence making my opponents argument null. Sources:1. . http://www.nij.gov...2. . http://www.nij.gov...3. . https://www.boundless.com...4. . http://www.clydebankhigh.org.uk...5. . http://norml.org...6. . http://www.drugabuse.net...7. . http://www.sentencingproject.org...