Rehabilitation Paper Essay

As I am told to write this rehabilitation paper and to quote a definition, I understand that rehabilitation basically is a word of hope in the prisoner life not only for prisoners but as well for the selected individuals that strive to make prisoners better members of society. So, with that being said, my definition for rehabilitation is as follows: the idea or concept of making a prisoner better. The purpose of rehabilitation is almost with no form. It’s supposed to correct or bring an end to criminals’ wrong doing so that criminal offenders can emerge as useful members of society. The basic idea derived from the idea that a person who has been incarcerated will never want to be sent back to prison after they have been set free. Well, as we can see that is not the case. Most prisoners go through these rehabilitation programs and are released and just as soon as they are released go back to the way they were before and become criminal offenders and prisoners again. The origins of rehabilitation focused on forcing an inmate to consider both the error of his or her ways, the gravity of the crime committed, and why good conduct and further avoidance of crime would be beneficial. The initial origins of the penitentiary were created by the Quakers, and reinforced by religious fervor for a ‘black and white’ application of the law. â€Å"What the Quakers believed in was penance, the suffering of punishment inducing the prisoner to express sorrow for his sins and to promise to do good to make up for his evil acts-social change based on the religious transformation that took place within the penitentiary. The penitentiary was a place for penitents to do penance. This was intended to take place in isolation, as one might meditate alone in one’s room (Foster, 2006).† Rehabilitation affects the prisoners as well as general society because it’s supposed to make prisoners more acceptable in society. These programs strive to make criminals better citizens with this being said,   criminals as less likely to be an oppose threat to other citizens’ or members of the general society. I think that you can improve rehabilitation by starting rehabilitation as soon as a prisoners become a prisoner and making better choices on what types of programs that will help prisoners personally and individual ly. I think that rehabilitation can make a big difference in prison as well as having prisoners go through rehabilitation when they are released too. References Foster, B. (2006) Corrections: The fundamentals. Upper Saddle River.NJ: Prentice Hall.