Criminal justice survey and findings

¶ … raged among those in law enforcement: do prisons exist to punish, or to rehabilitate? I argue that they can, and should be, both. While certainly some prisoners will never reform and will always remain a threat to society, others do their time and then go on to stay out of trouble for the rest of their lives. Currently we aren't very good at predicting who will leave prison for good and go on to lead productive lives, and who will be repeat offenders. However, we do know that they have the best chance of avoiding prison's revolving door if they leave prison well-equipped to live on the outside. There are three major issues that can make this hard: a history of substance abuse, psychological problems, and inadequate education. I would like to see our prisons make better use of opportunities for drug rehabilitation, psychological counseling and other treatments for those who need it, and solid opportunities to improve literacy and earn a G.E.D. In my opinion, these services are offered somewhat sporadically and inconsistently. By doing this we can rehabilitate those who can benefit from it, lower the number of re-offenders, and continue to contain those who cannot reform.

Paying for these programs is the biggest obstacle. It will require more funding and more staff. However, both the states and the federal government might look at what kinds of funds have to be used to provide services to these people if they continue in a pattern of substance abuse, or remain chronically underemployed because of marginal literacy or psychological problems. Some of those funds could be channeled into these prison programs, but should be earmarked specifically for that purpose so the funds couldn't be diverted. Prison authorities would need a way of evaluating participants in these programs to make sure the participants are making efforts, but the people who run these programs could help with that judgment. We cannot rehabilitate all prisoners, but we should try to rehabilitate those who can be.

2.

Iraq has many hurdles to overcome as it moves from a repressed dictator ship to a free and democratic society. I believe that a well-functioning justice system is a cornerstone of democracy, but given the repressive history of Iraq it seems possible that their police force does not have good experience in gathering and preserving evidence. We know that in the past, Iraq has not practiced what we could consider fair and impartial legal justice. Instead, the police force, courts and prisons have all been used politically.

Our United States law enforcement systems have determined how to gather and preserve evidence, including how to collect, how to protect it from degradation, and how to make sure the chain of evidence is not broken, so both prosecution and defense can be confident evidence has been neither lost nor altered. Because of this, those charged with a crime can have confidence that the evidence being used against them is valid. Their attorneys can examine the evidence themselves. If their attorney detects a break in the chain of evidence, such as a period of time when the evidence cannot be accounted for, that attorney can challenge the use in court.