United States should explore positive steps for criminal rehab

The rehabilitation of criminals in the United States has been a heavily debated subject for many years. Many prisons across the world are practicing different methods of rehabilitation and changing the environment for the prisoners enclosed in their facilities. The best way to rehabilitate prisoners is to create an environment of peace and tranquility, such as offering ways to release pent up energy, and classes to reduce stress and anger.

One prison in Buckinghamshire England is offering college course criminology classes to inmates, covering material such as “what is a legitimate use of power?” and “why do people obey the law?” The inmates are treated as equals with Cambridge postgraduate students.

I believe this to be an extremely well planned way to handle people who have disobeyed the law, for it is important that they understand the error of their ways before they are set free, and the best way to do this, in my opinion, is to have them learn about this field from a professional.

Results of this experiment have yet to be concluded as classes are still going on for the inmates and the students.

“Being able to put our past behind us and do something positive like this has helped our confidence, transforming our lives,” says one student from the Learning Together Prison Education Program.

Rehabilitation processes like this are what is able to help inmates turn their lives around once they leave prison, and possibly pursue a higher education.

This can only help to reduce the amount of repeat offenders.

One possible problem that can be seen from this program is the possibility of the overpopulation of prisoners participating if this initiative was ever brought over to America, since we have many more convicts than the United Kingdom does.

People who have done the wrong thing need to learn why it is wrong and what the alternative would be. I do understand that in some cases such as serial murder or infanticide, there really is no way of successful rehabilitation, but in these cases these people need special attention and one on one counseling, as opposed to hoping that they will some day learn the error of their ways.