Should the U.S. develop programs that focus more on rehabilitation than punishment?

Question

would this method reduce its rate of incarceration

Answer 1

The only thing that will reduce the rate of incarceration is to increase the percentage of the population that is likely to follow laws.  Childhood education and conditioning is the most helpful tool that can be used for this.  Programs like D.A.R.E., McGruff, and s*x Ed. are great, but more is required than education.  Education teaches children ABOUT bad things, but does not provide experience to ingrain good behaviors.

What we need is to focus on providing cultural acceptance conditioning at a young age.  Teaching children to actually care for everyone in thier class would go a long way toward a total erasure of hate crimes in the future.  When the child reaches adulthood, however, more is needed than just a kind heart to keep him/her from going rogue.  A free higher education for every child will ensure that everyone is well-off enough that they don't aspire to robbing anyone.  Finally; government grants to fund robotics research will ensure that within twenty years, no one needs to work at McDonalds or be a janitor, and no one is 'lower class.'

Punishment comes after the fact.  Behavioral psychologists have known for over seventy years that positive reinforcement works much better than negative reinforcement.  When a person has something to hope for, they are driven to work for it - and when a person is threatened, they just look for a way around the punishment.  It's much more effective to get people working with you.

Answer 2

Makes sense to me. People are always saying that the rate of recidivism is way too high. But what are we to expect if they didn't have any skills when they were incarcerated and they come out without any. What other course of action do they have but to go back to their old ways.

Of course there are exceptions to that. Some cannot be rehabilitated.

Besides what would all those reality cop shows do if there were less people out there doing bad?

Just a thought.

Answer 3

no. I don't believe you can change people in that way. I think we should implement the death penalty in more cases and extend prison sentences.  Also, stop letting criminals out for "Good behavior".