Alternatives to Traditional Incarceration

Incarceration Alternatives Pros and Cons In some ways, there are nearly as many different pros and cons to incarceration alternatives as there are varieties of such pros and cons. As a social institution, incarceration has a definite function in helping to keep those who would harm other members of society from doing so. However, that same social institution can overlook or miss several other functions that are needed in society for those who have transgressed its legal boundaries.

Some people commit legal transgressions because they have other needs (such as mental or chemical dependency related) that are not being met. Moreover, when incarcerated, those needs still are not met, and such people may simply revolve from states of incarceration to temporary terms of freedom. Despite the fact that there are varying advantages and disadvantages to alternatives to incarceration, they generally can be viewed from a streamlined perspective in which those pros and cons are categorized.

Most advantages pertain to the fact that incarceration alternatives allow people to address the specific problems associated with their legal difficulties, while most disadvantages relate to the fact that the punitive element of incarceration is de-emphasized with such options. The principal disadvantage of typical alternatives to incarceration revolves about a dearth of the gravity of the sort of punitive connotations associated with imprisonment. A brief overview of some of the more typical alternatives to incarceration proves this point.

Criminal offenders who are assigned to substance abuse programs, mental health facilities, and halfway houses are able to focus on the overarching problems that contributed to their criminal behavior. Still, there is a marked difference between these programs and incarceration, especially since the latter is largely designed to punish people. There are several aspects of incarceration that reinforce this function. Prisoners are isolated from society; they are housed in quarters that are uncomfortable. It is fairly evident to the prisoner that when incarcerated, he or she is enduring punishment.

That same sentiment does not always apply to incarceration alternatives. Patients in substance abuse programs are generally not prisoners -- although in some instances they may regard themselves as such. In these type of programs, then, the punitive aspect of incarceration is not emphasized, which can possibly lead to future transgressions on the part of the prisoner who can rationalize them by assuming their only 'punishment' will involve sitting through substance abuse meetings. Another disadvantage of incarceration alternative incarceration programs is that they make incarceration less effective.

Perhaps one of the most redeeming aspects of incarceration is that it can serve as a deterrent; which has long been considered one of its effects (Bhati and Piquero 207). There are some people who do not commit crimes because they do not want to get imprisoned. Therefore, incarceration can produce a positive effect on society because it keeps some people from engaging in unlawful behavior. There are several factors that explain the usage of imprisonment as a deterrent. Prisons may scare some people.

For instance, it is not irrational for people to view prison as a place in which additional crimes and violence routinely occur. In addition to this fearful quality of prisons, they also can seriously derail a person's career, life plans, and very livelihood. All of these reasons contribute to a low regard for prison which reinforces its use as a deterrent.

If everyone knew that in the event that they committed a crime, they would not have to go to prison and could instead go to an alternative to incarceration, then prison would not function as a deterrent. Viewed from this perspective, alternatives to incarceration negatively impact the social value that prisons have as a deterrent for crime and criminal behavior. Some might argue that were there more incarceration alternatives and higher rates in which they were used for criminal offenders -- there would be much more unlawful behavior.

The primary benefit associated with incarceration is that it enables people to get the sort of help that they need to function lawfully in society. The best example of this benefit involves aspects of substance abuse, mental health, and other social problems. When someone is plagued with these sorts of problems, the crimes that he or she commits are effects of what are more significant issues. Alternatives to incarceration allow people to directly address these issues.

The principle, then, for such programs, is that by correcting the primary problem of a criminal offender, that offender will then have less of a propensity to commit crime. Therefore, programs that focus in the aforementioned areas are extremely effective in that they are actually helping the individual. There is little in the way of help that is found in prisons. There may be programs designed to help inmates with mental health or substance abuse problems.

However, the overarching aim of prisons is to prevent crimes and to punish people for committing them (David, 2006). It is difficult to truly get the sort of help that some of these issues require in a setting in which someone who is essentially a patient of whatever particular malady he or she is suffering from is enduring punishment. By far, the more preferable alternative is to receive treatment in facilities with employees who are specifically trained to counteract whatever ailment patients are suffering from.

In this regard, prisons are effective at punishing people -- the high rate of inmates in the U.S. indicates that prisons are more effective at punishing people than they are at deterring them from crime. Alternatives to incarceration, however, are useful for giving people the skills and means to cope with their problems, so that they have less tendency to commit crimes at all. Moreover, alternative methods of incarceration are much more rehabilitative than conventional prison systems.

Even in instances in which offenders do not necessarily have some overarching social ill like substance abuse or mental problems, people are treated in a much more humane fashion in incarceration alternative facilities. For instance, those who are stationed in halfway houses are not isolated from society the way that those in conventional jails are. As such, the staff that interacts with them is more responsible and not.