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Rehabilitation vs Punishment

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Rehabilitation Versus Punishment
Tyler Ross
Macomb Community College

In this essay, I will go over the issues of punishment versus rehabilitation for convicted offenders. The issues I will point out will be how punishment and rehabilitation affects deterrence of crime, how it impacts the victims and their families, and the financial impact upon society. This debate will show both pros and cons to punishment and rehabilitation.
The criminal justice system and the public have opinions on how each should work and not work. I will go over each side of the issue when it should be time to punish or rehabilitate.
The Deterrence theory is if one commits a crime the punishment should outweigh the crime. To prevent crime from occurring the law will show through punishment. The punishment should outweigh the crime. If you put the fear of punishment into the criminal, then he will think twice about committing the crime. Crime has been part of society for a long time, and the usual punishment is to incarcerate. Even though incarceration is a temporary fix for the felon, research shows “recidivism amongst convicted felons following release from prison is as high as 63%” and most of the inmates had arrest records and convictions prior to the incarceration of their current offense “ (Carson & Mulako-Wangota, 1989).
Others argue rehabilitation is a deterrence to crime. Rehabilitation has long-term effect on offenders since it would prevent future crime from happening. Also rehabilitation changes the criminal behavior, and gets them back in to society by giving them an education. By giving offenders an education, when they get released they can find jobs and it allows the offender to have a sense of purpose in the society. When offenders use rehabilitation programs they can get into therapy. For example, drug therapy for those with substance abuse addictions. Another

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