Does rehabilitation work?

M

mr00jimbo

New member
Somebody once tried to steal my car stereo by smashing my side window in and making a mess. I was so mad at the time I searched for three days asking around, until I found out who it was. I just couldn't contain myself, I worked for that damn stereo for a month.
Then more left wing people told me "Why worry? It's just a stereo. Getting him into jail isn't going to work, rehabilitation is the way to go."

For rapists, murderers, etc. I don't think I want a refurbished mind roaming the streets. Maybe for like, stealing Candy Bars, but not serious felonys.
In my opinion, from what I've seen, for the most part rehabilitation doesn't work.

What do you think?
 
I'm not sure that should be the point. If you do something wrong, then you should pay in some way. If a criminal is to be rehabilitated, then it should be after they have paid, and at their own expense. Tough world, isn't it.
 
Rehabilitation? Only through reincarnation. Recidivism is the reality. I am aare of no criminals who have ever been rehabilitated. Most of those arrested are in a stairstep escalation of violence and increasingly illegal actions. If we were to bring back public floggings, it wouldn't lower the crime statistics. The criminals are lost. The only thing we can do is execute or house them at our expense. We could try forced deportation to a penal colony. The problem is, the USA doesn't have one. Execution or housing are the only options I see.
 
1 more option?

Well, if rehab. really has obviously failed, though I'm not necessarily advocating this, mind you, but what about revenge as another option? For example, a theft victim could get to chop off a 3-time? offenders hands a la Hammurabi. The first 2 victims of that same criminal would be invited to participate. I know I would feel like I've gotten my money's worth.
Or for a sex-crime, there could be lots of interesting possibilities. And so on.

And if someone out there really feels that you can judge a society by how it treats its criminals, I would be proud to be a member of a society that understood that people have to bear the consequences of their own actions. I can't imagine enough extenuating circumstances to absolve chronic criminal behavior.
 
Rehab

For a few things if the person that screwed up is willing to owe up and pay up for what they did first. I also feel truth in sentence would be a good way to start. If the sentence was handed down for 7 years in federal prison, then damn it, let it be that way. After his/her real time is done then they should go to a rehab on a loan system they would repay once they get back into productive society. Sorta like college loans........opps, bad example because so many of our great folks renig on paying them......that's another story....... anyhow, rehab is and has been less than worth the $ that has been spent over the years. If Johny Badbutt was raised by a couple of drug heads, his chances are going to be real hard to know how real good people live, work, act and conduct business in the real world. I don't think society can start at foundation and work an adult over again. I'm sure it's a real low percentage..........

Maybe rehab for drugs and drinks......but rape, arson, murder, armed robbery and similar felony work??????? Naw, not too likely.
 
What do you think?
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First of all, the reason we have laws to punish criminals is not to deter them from doing the crime but rather to deter the victims from seeking revenge. So the question is not whether punishment is fair or not or whether it deters the criminal but whether it stops a Hatfield-McCoy reaction.

Second, rehab helps some but not others. In the mental heath field I think what works best is giving drug addicts one single chance to straighten up via court diversion rehab, then if they fail that they should be sent to jail for 2-3 years, then if that doesn't work keep them in jail until past their 40th birthday then if that doesn't work, put them back in jail until they're over 60.

But that is for crimes like selling drugs or theft. For major crimes like rape and murder I think that it works better to do the rehab in jail to start with. Better deterrent to kill rapists and murderers, but that is another story.
 
I think one issue is being ignored. Criminal actions continue inside our penal institutions. We reward good behaviour with time knocked off. Rape, murder, assaults and scams are still in full swing even inside the prisons. Bad is bad, wherever it lives.
 
Absolutely.

My father is an ex-con and he is straight arrow now. Although I cant say much for violent criminals, although I can see rehab working for some of them too, ESPECIALLY if the problems are centered around drugs or alchohol.
 
I've seen it work in very rare instances, but for the most part, a leopard can't change his spots. It makes me feel good though, when someone walks up to me (as happened a few days ago) and says "do you remember me? You arrested me 18 yrs. ago." Me: "uh, OK (on guard)". Then he says, "yeah, I got my act together when I got out, went to school, got a good job, and have a wife & kids". So even though it doesn't work very often, I still think it's worthwhile trying.
 
Rehabilitation can work, in a small percentage of cases and with most criminals your chance of rehabilitation occurs a long time before they go to jail.

Most Courts treat jail as a last resort (except in mandatory sentencing areas or felonies) and will look at other options first. A person will be treated lightly first time before the Court and with successive appearances for similar offences can expect harsher sentences so that by the third time the Court is looking at Jail to wake them up.

Sometimes it does, usually it does'nt and things get worse.

Mandatory sentencing does not work either. Most of your serious criminals seem to treat jail as an occupational hazzard and to some extent amongst minority groups as a right of passage.
 
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