Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 1) | Page 91
Re-entry and Integration
Dear Students of Social Work
Social work in the criminal justice system and in particular in aftercare is crucial
work although it takes place in a secondary setting.
What has been the trend in the other side of the
world?
In recent years, Americans who have for decades filled their prisons, have
begun to weigh more categorically the price of mass incarceration. There is
comparison of the stark equivalent in some instances of the annual per-inmate
cost of prison with that of the tuition at a good college. Such comparisons
although coming from a cost perspective reiterate the risk that prisons can
feed a cycle of poverty, community dysfunction, crime and hopelessness.
There is also a rise in support for a more diversified way of rehabilitating
prisoners in the States instead of focusing on punishment. Central to the call
for reform is the need to have fewer nonviolent offenders in prison. Punishing
crime or criminal justice policy is a difficult subject as there are so many
constituents involved in deriving the policy – ranging from law enforcement
groups, businessmen, social workers to advocates for crime victims. Each
country, state and city has its own history and method of how to prevent
crime, how to punish crime and increasingly how to help those who have
gone the wrong way to behave in a pro-social manner.
Even while lobbyists win the argument for less punitive measures and against
long incarceration, the important question remains : How do we punish and
deter criminals, protect the public and improve the chances that those caught
up in the criminal justice system emerge with some hope of productive lives?
We read of many experiments in states and localities in the States, and of
researchers trying to determine what works. Although the government has
stepped up evaluation of all these programs (see the National Institute of
Justice’s impressive CrimeSolutions.gov website), most of the evidence is still
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