Provide a substantive response to at least one colleague about their conversation.
For this discussion, I had a bit of insight since I worked in corrections when I graduated from college. It is how I began my career in criminal justice. I am now pursuing my P.H, D. and hope to continue on my journey for the a career in the forensic science community. Within our society and in the criminal justice system there will be varied opinions on our correctional system. But, for all it's negative press, this system is a highly populated, dangerous, and highly stressed work environment. One topic that I like to discuss with people is overcrowding. Due to overcrowding in the system, which offenders should be incarcerated based on what level of crimes and/or released for good behavior or time served.
I chose a male, 55 year old friend who is a small business owner. He has one college age son and is from the South. He knows I am pursuing a higher education and what I use to do in my past career. I asked him how he felt about our prison system. He began my saying that he felt like if a person has enough money to hire a great attorney to begin with, then they probably have a better chance in court and may not end up in prison. I asked why he thought that and he said because they can hire other people to prove your innocence. So, that could be one topic that we could discuss for many hours and many people would agree and disagree.
I then asked about overcrowding in the correctional system. Does he think it is because there are more criminals or is there another reason? He thinks that yes, crime is up but people make their own choices and end up in a jail or prison because they have made more than one mistake. I suggested that maybe it was one big mistake and he said yes it could have been, but they made that decision to go through with the crime. I stated that what about minimal offensives, unpaid traffic tickets, no shows on court dates, etc. He said he understood that and maybe there was an option to jail time so that the facilities would have room for violent offenders.
In conclusion, the criminal justice system will always have flaws. A correctional institute is there to serve a purpose. People commit crimes on a daily basis. Some of these people are repeat offenders. How we handle these offenders while they are in the correctional institute may be the issue. But, since they are in the jail and/or prison to be punished, is it societies job to pay for them to be housed, clothed, fed, given medical care, cable t.v., and other activities? Also, wouldn't there time be better spent during their sentence earning an education that they somehow pay for or doing some form or restitution to their victims? I realize this would all take funding from other places, but I believe the American tax payers would rather foot the bill for that than cable t.v. and basketball games for convicted criminals to enjoy their stay.
RESOURCES:
Roth, M.P. (2011). Crime and Punishment: A history of the criminal justice system (2nd ed.) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Palmero, G. (2002). International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparitive Criminology. 46 (2) pp. 123 to 143.