Rehabilitate or punish: How should society treat criminals?
by Chip Pittman
Every criminal is a person. Every person is different from every other person. Every criminal is therefore different from every other criminal. There is not single solution to the problem of criminal behavior. Although criminal activity can be easly broken down into neat categories, criminals as people can not.
Let's look at punishment. In different countries there are different types of punishment.
Some are more effective than others. In the Unites States there are very few options when it comes to punishment (prison, probation, house arrest or in rare occasions execution), and due to the pitifully easy punishments there is very little deterrent to avoid crime. In countries where corporal punishment and maiming are implemented, citizens are much more motivated to do the right thing. Punishment does work...sometimes.
What about rehabilitation? Some of those people in prison are people who just make mistakes. They saw an opportunity and took it, or caved in to temptation. People committing property crime and white collar crime can sometimes be in this category. The "one time only mistake" type of criminal usually decides in prison that they will not repeat their mistake. Some of them decide not to break the law again. For them punishment was all the rehabilitation needed. Others will just use the prison time think of new ways to get away with crime. There is no rehabilitation for people without integrity.
People convicted of sexual crimes may actually be easier to rehabilitate than those who do not have any regard for personal property or governmental funds. There have been some great advances in the field of abnormal psychology, and I applaud the efforts of those researchers. This does not mean that we should trust our children with a "cured" child molester, but it does indicate that terribly long prison terms might not be the only solution.
Some prisoners are in complete denial. They refuse to accept that they did anything wrong when they broke the law. They refuse to accept the law of the land as applicable to them. No amount of psychological assistance or legal punishment (by United States standards, anyway) will deter them from future criminal activity.
If you have read this far and are thinking that there must be hundreds of types of criminals that have not been addressed, then you are correct. There are almost as many types of criminals as there criminals. The chance that a convicted prisoner will change is completely up to that particular convicted prisoner. We, unfortunately, do not get to decide.