We are spectacularly ineffective at rehabilitating offenders who spend time in prison. Almost 200 years ago, they invented the “penitentiary” so that criminals feel sorry and reform their customs. The architectural pattern of these large-scale prisons was copied all over the world, more than 300 times. The methods used in prison did not reform the prisoners. The prisoners committed as many, if not more, crimes than they did before their first prison stay. Many prisoners on probation committed horrendous crimes. Most likely, ex-convicts will return to prison. In 1984, the federal government gave up, found rehab a failure, and abolished parole in the federal system. The US government now takes no chances with criminals serving time; they serve their full sentences with no hope of parole.
A large percentage of criminals have never had a job. Many inmates don’t know the most necessary job skill: reporting to work on time. Prisoners lack education; many barely know how to read and write. Jobs for uneducated and illiterate workers have become scarce and sporadic. Youth at high risk of incarceration cannot easily find jobs.
The main reason prisons don’t rehabilitate much is because inmates don’t learn to work hard in prison. A hundred years ago, prison experts said that prisoners have to learn to work in order to support themselves when they are released. Prison work prevents inmates from learning more criminal methods, participating in gang activities, getting bored or rotting. But our laws severely restrict industries and prison work. Most prison industries can only make products for the state. We undermined the prison industries long before the federal government gave up on rehabilitation.
Criminals stay up late; workers go to bed early. Criminals take drugs; workers must stay sober on the job. Workers support themselves by useful work; criminals keep taking or harming others. A life of crime rarely ends well. A life of hard work often provides abundance or satisfies needs over the years. Work is the opposite of crime. To keep young people from a life of crime, the best thing that can be done is to put them to work honestly. They must learn basic job skills, including punctuality, cleanliness, strenuous effort, manners, and the ability to work with others. The more education they have, the better their job prospects.
Too often we think of crime in vague terms, as the product of poverty, abuse, ignorance, mental illness, and violence. It calls for the abolition of racism, oppression, injustice and poverty… but those lofty goals are nebulous and no one knows how to reach them. We know how to put people to work. Work is often more productive if it is done in the private sector. The best thing we can do to rehabilitate convicted felons is to change our criminal laws and procedures to allow and encourage hard work in privately run prison industries.
