Challenges of Prisoner Re-Entry into Society (Essay Sample)

Challenges of Prisoner Re-Entry into Society
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Challenges of Prisoner Re-Entry into Society
In the United States, most prisoners encounter many challenges in adapting to the new environment, which makes them less productive in society. They face a lot of challenges because before being released, they had not undergone re-socialization. There have been increased re-arrest cases in the United States among the prisoners who have recently been released (Wodahl & Freng, 2017). It becomes an essential consideration for the prisons to ensure that they are engaging the inmates with re-socialization sessions to ensure that they are produced within the community. The re-socialization sessions will make them productive in society. The following paper will look at an overview of the prisons and why most inmates end back in prison due to a lack of re-socialization before being released.
In the United States, there are two types of prisons: private prisons and non-private prisons. A lot of differences exist between private and public prisons, which should be noted. Most of the prisons owned by individuals are profit-driven, which has made them not disclose the inmate population. It is staffing or even the services they offer, mainly how inmates can re-socialize with others while out of prison. The significant difference that can be seen between the two types of prisons can be broken down to money motive.
Both private and public prisons always keep on hold to people who have violated the law. The private prisons are run by private and third-party companies but not the government, which is in charge of the non-private prisons. The government supports the private prisons through funding, which is enabled in contracts that they enter into by the government. The funds that private prisons get depend on the number of inmates they are holding and their time in prisons. Therefore, it means that private prisons are much focused on holding the inmates to get profits, not correcting the inmates as required, or even teaching them about re-socializing with other people. At the same time, they will be released to the community. The private prisons work with a notion that the more inmates they would hold and longer sentences, the more they will earn money.
On the other hand, public prisons are operated by the government, and in most cases, they operate as non-profit facilities. The government has complete control to determine the types of inmates who will go to a particular government incarceration facility. The government can also determine how one stays in prison and can release the inmates early. They get government funding through the taxes they pay. Hence, public prisons are required to release statements on how the operations are being run within the prison to account for how the public money is being used. On the other hand, private correctional facilities do not publish a statement on how the received public money has been used (Romashov & Bryleva, 2019). There has been an increased lack of prisons' concern on training the inmates on re-socializing and healthy society. For these reasons, most of the inmates have faced re-arrests a few years after being released from prison.
Various reasons result from recidivism due to lack of re-socialization of inmate once released from the prison. The reasons can be explained under different levels, including the individual level, family/small groups level, and organizational or group levels. Individual-level challenges are some of the primary reasons for inmates going back to prison after being released without re-socialization sessions. For example, when a person has been arrested, it is nearly impossible for such a person to secure an employment opportunity than the other person in the general population (Perez-Feliciano et al., 2020). Most employers have a negative attitude towards prisoners, which makes it hard for them to be trusted. Also, they lack the skills to express themselves because they were not taught how to express themselves and other interpersonal qualities to interact with others in prison. Hence, this makes the inmates lack the professional network and employers' requirements to be looking into employment.
The other reason that leads to re-arrests among the inmates who have been released from the prison before re-socialization related to the family. During the time that inmates have to spend in prison, there is limited contact with family members. Some of the prisons even deny the inmates an opportunity to interact with their family members directly. The prisoners, therefore, lose out on meaningful stages of interaction with the family members. While in prison, they are not taught how they can be interacting with others while out of prison. They come out of the prison hopeless, and all they have to do is depend on other family members. They are lonely and sometimes look oppressed, which impacts their judgment. Hence, the chances of repeating the same mistakes that made them get arrested are high. Most of the inmates are parents who have left behind their families. At the prison, they are not taught about parenting skills and life out of prison. They end up being hopeless, and the only way to handle their emotions is to engage in criminal activities.
The other reason why the inmates may end up in prison again is expectations. In prison, they are not taught about some of the expectations and changes in society. As time changes, there are some of the things that will change in the societal context. Hence, this may negatively impact some of the prisoners who may take long incarceration time in prison (Ouellette et al., 2017). Some of the changes that they might encounter are technological advancements. They hence lack the skills and competencies that they need to do specific jobs. This means that a more significant percentage of them will remain jobless. Unemployment can increase social issues, which is a clear indicator that there will be higher chances of committing crimes, hence re-arrested. When individuals spend a lot of time in prison, they will get used to it, hence not getting a new life. They believe that life outside the prison will be hard for them to adapt to.
When most of the inmates are released without re-socialization, they will have the notion that they are being treated negatively. For example, some laws require any person who has been in prison or criminal record not to vote and lack access to food stamps. They will take such information seriously and consider that the law and society have abandoned them altogether. Most prisons, both private and public, have been ignorant of teaching individuals about their rights and how life would be like when released from prison. Some of the conditions required of the people released from the prison include remaining in some geographic regions, requiring permiss