Parole Introduction Society Experiences Crime

Parole

INTRODUCTION society experiences crime due to many factors, the main ones being poverty and bad governance. If crime is not controlled and eliminated, an inevitable rise in the crime rate would not only drag down any progression by the society but also ruin it. Neglecting the need to suppress crime may lead it onto a greater level of terrorism. Hence the importance of studying the reason for crime and making a move to cure a society from this disease is of capital importance.

PLACING CRIMINALS IN PRISON BENEFITS EVERYONE

It is a myth very popular among people that placing criminals in prison keeps the society safe. However the hard fact is that overall prisons benefit neither the society nor the criminal himself. It should be noted that a small percentage of criminals get caught and one can say that temporarily society is safe from that small percentage due to the fact that they are in confinement and they do not have any interaction with society for the period of time that they are in jail. Most of this small percentage are there in prison for a short period of time and soon will be circulating in society again. Some may argue that once the small percentage serves their time, they fear to go back to jail and hence reconsider their criminal inclinations. Further they may argue that prisons also serve as deterrence. This is again not true and the reality is that "the failure of major institutions to reduce crime is incontestable.... Institutions do succeed in punishing, but they do not deter.... They change the committed offender, but the change is more likely to be negative than positive. It is no surprise that institutions have not been more successful in reducing crime." (National Advisory Commission, p. 1)

There is way too little statistical data to believe that prisons deter crime and it would be interesting to note here that psychologists have been voicing their opinion largely which conveys that a reward given for a behavior that is desired has far greater impacts than punishment given for an undesired behavior. Therefore the fact remains that keeping criminals in prison do not reduce the risk of criminal activities being present in society.

Moreover people might also state that it is better to be protected from the small minority who is kept in a prison - something is better than nothing. What people who belong to this school of thought fail to realize is that the majority of this small minority that does end up in jail remains in there for a very short period of time.

In the United States, 95% are released after an average imprisonment of 24 to 32 months.... So the protection offered by the prison during the incarceration of the offender is surely a short-term insurance policy and a dubious one at that." (Milton Rector, p. xii)

This explicitly informs us that if a prison does benefit society then it is only temporary for a very short time. Such a protection cannot be called "beneficial" for the society as within a period of two to three years the same criminals are once again a part of the society and there is no guarantee that they will adopt the life of a law-abiding citizen. Thus the notion that prisons serve to be deterrents is highly confutative.

In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court gave a ruling which averred the right of indigent felony defendants to counsel. The people who ended up being convicted without counsel and were sent to prison were released. Due to this the State of Florida released more than 1200 destitute malefactors before the completion of their sentences. Naturally fear spread all over and there was an expected increase in crime rate. Surprisingly after a period of 28 months the Florida Department of Corrections found that the recidivism rate for these malefactors was only 13.6% as compared to 25% for those that completed their time in prison. Ronald L. Goldfarb and Linda R. Singer quoted an American Bar Association committee which commented after their observations on this case:

If we, today, turned loose all of the inmates of our prisons without regard to the length of their sentences, and with some exceptions, without regard to their previous offenses, we might reduce the recidivism rate over what it would be if we kept each prisoner incarcerated until his sentence expired." (Ronald L. Goldfarb, Linda R. Singer, p.183)

Another assumption most famous in the minds of the general public is that prison systems keep us safe from "dangerous" criminals that are confined there. Who exactly is a dangerous person? No one is born dangerous. It is us who label them as to be "dangerous." Labeling someone as "dangerous" means that we find ourselves to be in a position to predict the future of someone else's behavior. There has been no scientifically or otherwise established fact that there exists such an ability to make such a prediction. The people who tend to label others "dangerous" are in error and this error leads to the uncalled for imprisonment of many individuals. However, today authorities use this labeling system to lock up protestors and political militants. The Bush administration used the same system to justify their war on Iraq. Neither can any judge nor any psychiatrist foretell the future. The psychiatrists are also well aware of this but the problem is that "if psychiatrists consistently erred in their judgment by predicting that patients would not become violent, when in fact some did, the psychiatrists would lose the power and right to exercise their expertise in court. By over-predicting they avert that tragedy, and no one pays any attention to the 20 or more harmless people locked up to prevent the 21st from committing violence." (Henry J. Steadman, Joseph J. Cocozza, p. 35)