The Affect Rehabilitation Programs to Help Inmates Upon Release

¶ … Gangs in Prisons in the United States and the Affect Rehabilitation Programs to Help Inmates Upon Release Prison Gangs are one of the most challenging entities that have to be tackled by the authorities. Their growing influence in the prison setting concerns not just the inside of the prisons, but also the outside world, as when they are released, the members continue causing problems for the society.

A lot of rehabilitation programs have been formed in order to provide guidance and a fresh start to the inmates who are released, which helps them overcome their criminal life and lead a normal one. This paper discusses the phenomenon and existence of criminal gangs and how the rehabilitation programs affect them after their release. Introduction According to Lyman (1989), a prison gang is a criminal entity made up of special group of chosen prisoners that is governed with some sort of code and structured within a strict chain of command.

Most prison gangs often conduct their operations in secrecy and have a goal of controlling certain quarters of the prison through the use of violence and intimidation towards those who are not members (p. 48). Public authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about the growing influence of prison gangs not only in the prison settings, but also in the outside world. Scholars are worried that the criminal activities conducted by such groups have gone beyond the confines of the prison walls.

Reports are also indicating that many more gangs are being formed in prisons these days compared to what was the case a few years ago (Ruddell & Winterdyk, 2010). For instance, according to a 1999 study by the National Gang Crime Research Centre, the number of inmates affiliated to prison gangs in state prisons rose from 9.4% in 1991 to a whopping 24.7% in 1999. Another study by the American Correctional Association found that correctional facilities had an average of 11.7% gang-affiliated prisoners in 2003 and that the figure rose to 13.8% in 2008.

Using the 2008 proportions by the American Correctional Association against the total prison population brings the total number of prisoners affiliated to prison gangs to about 200,000 individuals. This number goes a long way to show just how big a security threat these gangs are in the society. The negative influences of prison gangs in the correctional facilities are well-known.

Some of the threats posed by prison gangs include: distribution of contraband materials (including drugs and weapons), prison riots, major incidents, higher rates of prison violence, higher interracial, interethnic and inter-gang incidences of violence, running of criminal enterprises in the community, preventing the rehabilitation of convicted individuals through support of criminal conduct, and lastly, undermining reintegration into the society as parolees may feel justified to go back to their life of crime (Ruddell & Winterdyk, 2010).

Challenge of Prison Gangs As the situation currently stands, there are many more men and women in prisons than the case was a few decades ago. For instance, as of 2000 the total prison population was approximately 2,000,000 individuals. The duty of improving the quality of life and making sure that inmates are rehabilitated is a shared one, between community members and those tasked to manage correctional facilities.

This is because prisons are public institutions that are funded using taxpayers' money and that what happens in these institutions to some extent, determine whether an inmate is rehabilitated, if he or she can successfully reintegrate into the community, or not. It is, however, interesting to note how many in the public think that inmate and prison management is an easy job.

This has led to calls by lobby groups and politicians to have some "luxuries" such as education programs, fitness equipment and color televisions removed from correctional facilities so as to make these institutions tougher. Many individuals have the simplistic opinion that making prisons tougher could force prisoners to straighten out and that it can scare others from committing crime. The prevailing clamour is that if individuals choose to get involved in crime, they should be left to suffer the consequences.

It should, however, be noted that such simplistic measures cannot solve the problem of prison gangs (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Prison Gangs: Structure and Organization The typical prison gang in the United States is made up of a leader who is in charge of a "committee" of members who oversee the gang's operations. Most criminal gangs have such strong structures and chains of command that they look much more organized than gangs operating on the outside.

Studies indicate that leaders and committee members comprise of about 15 to 20% of such gangs, meaning that the majority of the members of such organizations do not have a stake in the leadership of such groups (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Similar to their counterparts on the outside, prison gangs also have some sort of motto, symbols or creed and a code of conduct that guides how the members interact with each other and with non-members.

The two most important qualities that a member must have in such groups is the ability to keep the group and its operations a secret and also the ability to be loyal to the group. Many such groups are often in the business of smuggling contraband, including drugs into the prison. Prison gangs also make sure that their members are protected. Indeed, it is because of the protection "services" offered by prison gangs that many inmates decide to join.

Gang members are the biggest bargaining chip in criminal organizations such as these ones; when members leave a group, it suddenly becomes vulnerable and exposed to attacks (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Many researchers have found that most of the violence in prisons is caused by gangs. Much of the violence is fuelled by the desire to be sole suppliers of contraband in the prison and also the desire to hold the most power in such settings.

Many of these gangs are formed in overcrowded prisons where staff cannot keep an eye on all the activities of every inmate under their care (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Correctional Responses to Prison Gangs It is no doubt that prison gangs have had negative influences both inside prisons and in the outside world. These effects have led to prison administrators making correctional responses to the rule violations, disorders and crime. For instance, many correctional facilities have come up with policies to control gang-affiliated prisoners.

Even though scholars have argued that one of the major reasons why individuals join such groups is the need for social identity, this doesn't explain the importation of mottoes, symbols, names and structures from the outside world. Other reasons why prisoners join these gangs include race/ethnicity, personal interests, and the need for belonging. However, to try and suppress the tendency to join social groups would not work as an overall management strategy. This was tried before in the Pennsylvania system and it didn't do any good.

However, this is the case in super-maximum security correctional facilities (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). Many administrators of correctional institutions have tried both covert and open strategies to control prison gangs.

Some of the strategies used include: case-by-case examination of violations or offenses committed by such gangs; disruption of external and internal communications; prosecution of criminal offenses committed by such gangs; use of lockdowns; isolation of the leaders of such gangs; use of segregation to separate gang members; use of informants to get information about what is happening in the blocks or in the cells. However, no studies have been done to investigate how effective these strategies are in the suppression of prison gang activities.

The most popular among these suppression strategies is the use of segregation. The procedure entails locking inmates for 23 hours a day in their cells and then letting them out for one hour. An example of where this strategy worked effectively is in the Texas system. The state decided to segregate all the known members of prison gangs in 1985 so as to cut their influence on the rest of the inmate populations. This resulted in significant reductions of gang-related homicides, and armed assaults (Fleisher & Decker, 2001).

Administrative isolation works because segregating gang leaders disrupts the chain of command within such groups and this frequently leads to the breakdown of groups. Apart from segregating the leaders they could be transferred to different blocks or prisons. Another gang suppression strategy is out-of-state transfers. In this strategy, gang leaders are transferred to correctional facilities in other states in the hope that this will stop prison gang operations. However, there is not yet a published report that shows the effectiveness of this strategy.

Indeed, some have even argued that transferring such individuals to other facilities could give them the opportunity to spread their gangs (Fleisher & Decker, 2001). When Prisoners Return to the Community: Political, Economic, and Social Consequences State correctional facilities took in 591,000 individuals in 1999 and released about the same number of convicts. If juveniles and federal inmates are added to the number of individuals released from prison, then over 600,000 people are released yearly from prisons. Almost no one has paid any attention in dealing with how to reintegrate prisoners into the society.

When the number of prisoners re-entering the society are not considered and their possible influences not checked, the cumulative impact of hundreds of thousands of inmates returning to the society may erode any gains made in convicting them in the first place (Petersilia, 2000). Recycling, all through families and groups, has various negative impacts. It is inconvenient to group attachment, vocation prospects and financial prosperity, support in the vote-based procedure, family security and youth advancement, and mental and physical well-being and can intensify such issues as vagrancy (Petersilia 2000).

The social attributes of neighborhoods, especially residential instability and poverty, impact the level of wrongdoing. There are "tipping focuses" past which groups can no longer positively impact the behaviour of the resident. Standards begin to change, issue and incivility expand, outmigration takes after, and crimes and savagery increase. The worst part is that the detainees leave jail without any reserve funds, no prompt qualification to unemployment advantages, and few employment prospects. One year after discharge, upwards of 60% of previous detainees are not utilized in the honest to goodness work market.

The loss of a significant part of the nation's modern base, once the real wellspring of occupations in inward city groups, has left a couple of chances for parolees who live there. Managers are progressively hesitant to contract ex-guilty parties (Petersilia 2000). Authorities have struggled to help prisoners to reintegrate into the society. The situation is also becoming a bit more challenging. For instance, the number of released prisoners is becoming greater almost every day; the needs of released prisoners are also increasing.

The rapid changes in technology also means that the skills that one might have had before going to prison might not longer be relevant when that individual is released. Thus, re-integration becomes even harder for such individuals. Indeed, increases in incidents of homelessness, infectious diseases, family violence, domestic abuse and child abuse have been partly attributed to increase in inmate returnees. As the lawyers of victims very well know, the huge number of returns means an increased threat to public safety.

For many communities, particularly those which are overrepresented in prison systems (African-Americans and Latinos), imprisonment is increasingly becoming a common experience. This is affecting how such young people socialize; the fear of imprisonment; crime victimization and future trajectory of crime (Petersilia, 2000). Parole: Managing More People Less Well Weakening of rehabilitation/correctional programs and new sentencing practices have led to increased pressures on parole. Funding and training for parole officers have also been cut, resulting in a very large number of parolees not being sufficiently monitored.

This has led to parolees escaping from supervision. Statistics show that more than 50% of parolees being rearrested. About three decades ago, things were a little different, the parole board only granted parole if they thought that the inmate had been rehabilitated and had strong ties to the society or community. This made parole a privilege that had to be earned and if any of the terms of the parole were violated, inmates could be rearrested and brought back to serve the remainder of their terms.

This provided a strong motivation not to commit crime (Petersilia, 2000). Rehabilitation Programs and their Success for Inmates Released from Prison The rehabilitation of offenders has become one of the most heated debates in the United States. With the majority of crimes being committed by repeat offenders, many more correctional institutions have turned their attention to rehabilitating individuals to correct their ways. Studies conducted over the last three decades show that some rehabilitation programs have more positive effects than other programs (Miceli, 2009).

Most prisoners have been found to have educational deficits; however, the study has shown that the training programs offered at prisons only serve a small percentage of the prison population. There are three main determinants of the effectiveness of these programs, which are (1) reduced recidivism, (2) completion, and (3) obtaining job opportunities upon release. Research shows that many inmates fail to complete basic education programs because of transfers. However, the inmates who were able to successfully complete vocational certificates were found to have a higher likelihood of post-prison employment (OPPAGA, 2007 ).

Education Program Completion Linked to Post Release Success Statistics from the Florida Education and Training Placement Information Program (FETPIP) show that prisoners who had earned a high school certificate or a GED had a 9.3% higher likelihood of being employed compared to other inmates, while those who had acquired a vocational certificate were 17.9% likelier to be employed compared to those who only had high school diplomas. They also had lower rates of recidivism.

Furthermore, inmates were found to be less likely to return to prison or to supervision when they completed education or training programs. At the same time, studies reported no significant differences in rates of recidivism among those who complete basic adult education course and those who didn't do any education program (OPPAGA, 2007 ). Substance Abuse Treatment Even though over 66% of prisoners can be considered as candidates for substance abuse program, not many prisons have well funded substance abuse programs.

Studies indicate that substance abuse programs can help facilitate the successful return of individuals to the society. The current drug programs that exist in state and federal prisons not only aim to change the inmates' physical drug addiction, but also their thought processes, including learning how to avoid certain situations that might force one into criminal behavior (OPPAGA, 2007 ). Nowadays, the department of corrections screens prisoners during the admission process to determine if they would need to be placed in drug treatment programs.

During screening, a drug addiction problem is scored based on several factors such as criminal history; severity of addiction; treatment history; and the sentencing authority's recommendations. The score is then combined with an inmate's planned release date so as to prioritize statewide treatment programs. Upon this determination, prisoners are slotted in treatment programs in cases where such programs can take more people in. In June 2006, the department of corrections found 56,392 inmates to be eligible for drug treatment programs.

However, since the economic downturn of 2006-2007, both state and federal governments have reduced funding to these programs, making it difficult for administrators to sustain these drug treatment programs. Even before the downturn, it had been reported that between the fiscal period of 2000-2001 and 2006-2007, funding for substance abuse treatment programs had already significantly reduced by 43% (OPPAGA, 2007 ). Most Participating Inmates Complete Substance Abuse Treatment, And Some Post-Release Outcomes Are Positive The main indicators of success in prison drug treatment programs are lower recidivism and higher program completion rates.

Most inmates participating in drug treatment programs successfully complete their programs. Even though prisoners attending therapeutic communities have lower rates of completion than those in the outpatient model, they still have lower rate of recidivism compared to those who do not take any treatment or training program (OPPAGA, 2007 ). Rehabilitative Programs May Produce Cost Savings and Help Reduce Inmate Idleness and Disciplinary Problems Apart from lower recidivism, education and substance abuse treatment have a tendency of having two extra positive gains; minimization of prison idleness and cost savings.

According to the evaluation of prisoner releases from the financial years 1996 to 2001, there might be recidivism cost savings linked with the program conclusions. Consequently, of all the prisoners concluding education and drug abuse programs, less than 550 went back to supervision and less than 485 went back to prison within the two-year follow-up duration. However, information on cost for every successful program completion does not exist. As an outcome, it can ne deduced that few criminals went back to prison or supervision because of completion of the rehabilitative program.

A more detailed analysis is, however, needed to establish if these particular gains are offset by the program's cost (OPPAGA, 2007 ). Sex Offender Treatment Whilst latest legislation.