I found that Mathiesen’s argument about how prison does not rehabilitate individual quite compelling. Prisons were supposed to help rehabilitate individuals but instead it became a place to hold inmates, where rehabilitation is not a priority. Mathiesen explains how there are no proper resources available for inmates when it comes to helping them reintegrate into society (Mathiesen, 2006, pg. 28). The idea of rehabilitation was to help the individual be restored to person they were before the fact of the crime. Therefore, being able to be a part of society with the honor they once had. But in reality, prisons do not allocate enough resources for the rehabilitation of inmates. The work, schooling, moral influence and discipline all take place in prisons but do barely anything in terms of rehabilitation. …show more content…
School is never constant for those interested in learning and that argument became more compelling after the video ‘Petey’ and how she had such a hard time trying to complete her education while in prison. The fact that we cannot offer proper rehabilitation to individuals who need it the most becomes an issue and this is why prisons do not work. There is no benefit in prisons and instead of rehabilitating individuals, they are debilitating them. It opened my eyes to see how such an issue is so prevalent in our society, how instead of trying to help those rehabilitate we deter them from it. This argument really changed my view on prisons because I never realized how even though so much money is put into prisons it’s never for the actual benefit of the inmate which in turn could’ve helped better