In the criminal justice system, more emphasis should be put on retribution than rehabilitation

1. The rate of incarceration in the United StatesAccording to the International Centre for Prison Studies at the University of Essex’s World Prison Population List, 10th edition [1], the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world: 716 people per 100,000 are imprisoned. Within five years of release, over two-thirds of prisoners are rearrested [2].2. Why is the recidivism rate so high?Dr. Joan Petersilia, who once worked as an advisor to former Governor Arnold Schwarzanegger [3], said that she found in 2007 that the state of California only spent $3,000 per prisoner per year on rehabilitative programs [4]. She concluded that “the CDC does not offer a sufficient range of rehabilitation programs, and some significant programs are missing altogether.” [5] She then noted that there was not a single program in the California’s prison system for sex offenders. She then noted how many people were using the rehabilitative programs.“For example, for the approximately 134,000 prisoners who left CA prisons in 2006 just 7% will have participated in substance abuse programs, (about 10,000 of the 134,000 prisoners exiting), just 10% will have participated in vocational education or prison industries (about 8,800), 20% of all exiting prisoners will have been in the Bridging education program an in-cell life skills program operating in reception centers, and about 18% will have participated in more traditional classroom academic education, (GED, and some college programs).”This is an obvious problem, as there is a very large number of people (50%, according to Petersilia) who are not in rehabilitative programs. Also, states do not spend enough on rehabilitative programs. She notes: “Of the $43,287 spent annually per inmate in California, just $2,053 (5%) is spent on rehabilitation programming.” 3. Alternative methods to the American systemThe Resolve to Stop The Violence Project was created by the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department in 1997, and James Gilligan and Bandy Lee studied the results of it when they were on the faculty of Harvard University [6].“The three main components that make up RSVP include: offender accountability, victim restoration and community involvement. Goals of the programme are to reduce recidivism and to promote offender accountability by: (1) taking responsibility for one’s actions and accepting the possibility for change; (2) identifying and analysing the social, cultural and personal belief systems that promote one’s violent behaviour; (3) recognizing that one has a choice at the critical time of violent response; (4) increasing awareness of the effects of one’s behaviour and empathy for victims; and (5) preparing to take on a restorative role when back in the community.”According to the study, the overall rate of recidivism in those that participated dropped 48.3%, and that those who spent twelve weeks in a regular prison were two times as likely to be rearrested than an inmate who spent twelve weeks in RSVP, and those who spent sixteen weeks or more in a regular prison were five times as likely to be rearrested than someone who spent sixteen weeks or more in RSVP.4. ConclusionThe current penal system in the United States does not do enough to rehabilitate their inmates, and thus rehabilitation should not be considered a failure: especially with the success of rehabilitative programs such as as the Resolve to Stop the Violence Project. Therefore, the lack of funding and lack of participation in the programs US prisons offer are the causation to the extremely high recidivism rate, not the failure of the nature of rehabilitative programs. Thus, I conclude that more emphasis should be put on rehabilitative programs to maximize efficiency in preventing recidivism.[1] http://www.prisonstudies.org...[2] http://www.bjs.gov...[3] https://www.law.stanford.edu...[4] http://www.nij.gov...[5] http://ucicorrections.seweb.uci.edu...[6] http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org...