If you were bullied in school as a child, then the “best years” of your life may have felt more like an endless, living nightmare. There is no shortage of social predators trying to boost their self-esteem or status at other people’s expense. Now imagine a school of hard knocks where the concentration of bullies is much higher than their victims. That’s what life may be like for many a convict serving time in prison. How impossible is it to not become hardened and detached under the constant threat of victimization? It’s hard to imagine that reform is part of that equation when one’s very life is at stake. Yet that is one of the impressions that we on the outside have of why criminals are in prisons: so that they will get better. But do they? In effort to make society appear to …show more content…
In an effort to offer better rehabilitative services to the inmates, many prisons have begun providing psychiatrists to help deal with mental disorders and serious issues held by the prisoners. They also offer classroom settings in which inmates can learn to read and discover other means of legally advancing themselves. These methods are proven to have a positive effect on the prisoners. They have helped many to overcome a background with little or no education and encouraged some to straighten out their lives. Upon their release, prisoners who have stuck with these programs are given a better opportunity to succeed and to become law abiding citizens. Rehabilitation of prisoners is an extremely difficult effort. Inmates are segregated from the general public and forced to live in a society where crime is a way of life. For many, time spent behind bars will push them farther into a life of crime, but for others, the horrors of prison life and the lessons they learn there are enough to convince them to do anything possible to never become imprisoned