Challenges of Parolees During Reentry Into Society
Law and order are among the most significant factors that help ensure a nation’s stability since it provides an environment for better well-being. The United States of America government has invested financial resources towards ensuring effectiveness in the delivery of justice within the nation. Justice is achieved only if the perpetrators of a given act of crime have been found guilty and the victims have compensated appropriately (Franco-Paredes et al., 2020). Individuals commit crimes due to different reasons, and hence the government, through the American department of justice, has put in measures to ensure that criminals are admitted to various correctional facilities to enhance positive behavior change.
Correctional facilities in America provide for a suitable environment to monitor the behavior of individuals who have been found guilty of committing different acts against the law. The American Department of Justice has also ensured that the inmates are subjected to various educational sessions and therapies that will enhance their behavior change and personal development of the inmates (Zhang et al., 2019). The main aim of the correctional facilities is to ensure that they introduce only reintroduce only reformed inmates into the general public through the American parole law (Franco-Paredes et al., 2020). Being under parole is a situation where an individual is reintroduced into the community from a correctional facility after portraying positive behavior change and agreeing to adhere to various directives from the judges.
However, individuals awarded parole by the judges in the American Department of Justice have faced various challenges when being reintroduced into society. One of the most critical challenges faced by parolees is the issue of mental health. All parolees are required to make healthy decisions when let free by the judges. However, a poor mental health state has resulted in a significant number of parolees making poor decisions which results in them losing their freedom (Zhang et al., 2019). Before being granted parole, the inmates are subjected to different forms of cognitive behavior assessment to ascertain their mental health (Franco-Paredes et al., 2020). A negative mental health outcome has resulted in most reformed inmates being denied parole.
Another major challenge faced by parolees upon release from correctional facilities is the issues of social connections and expectations. Most parolees do not know where to start because most of them find society to be very different from the one they left before getting sentenced. Other parolees also find it difficult to socialize with community members because they do not know what society expects from them. Other members of society also do not feel safe when parolees are left free because they feel that the parolees may commit similar crimes. Parolees are also restricted from various opportunities that may help them to improve the quality of their livelihood, but different restrictions imposed on them by the judges hinder them from accessing the opportunities.
The increase in challenges faced by parolees upon reintroducing to society has prompted the American department of justice to adopt an appropriate approach to enhance reintroducing into society. Effective integration of parolees majorly begins in the correctional facilities, where the inmates are subjected to various educational sessions, training, and therapies to enable them to have proper well-being (Stohr & Walsh, 2022). The sessions help the parolees to be productive individuals within the community since they have acquired appropriate skills that can enable them to generate more income for survival in the community.
The first step toward reintroducing a parolee to the society is by highlighting the type of community the individual is going back to live in. Some communities have poor economic performance that cannot enhance the well-being of the parolee (Stohr & Walsh, 2022). The American department of justice should ensure that they reintroduce parolees to communities with favorable economic values, which will provide them with opportunities that will enhance their socioeconomic status within the community (Zhang et al., 2019). However, other economically rich communities are not ready to accept parolees because they feel unsafe around individuals who have committed different forms of crime.
Another major factor to consider before reintroducing parolees into the community is the type of crime committed by the individual. There are various people within the community who do not want to be associated with parolees who have committed a capital crime. Some of the worst crimes that are considered to be capital offenses include murder, sexual assault crimes, and terrorism. Highlighting the crime committed by an individual will help in enhancing a successful reentry of a parolee into society (Zhang et al., 2019). The American department of justice should ensure that they only give parole privileges to inmates convicted of non-violent and non-sexual crimes.
Ensuring proper housing and healthcare for parolees is also another important factor in ensuring successful reentry into society. The housing enables parolees who were neglected or lost their family members to have a feeling of starting a new life in the community (Zhang et al., 2019). Providing them with healthcare privileges in government-owned healthcare facilities also motivates the parolees to ensure positivity and motivation towards life on parole.
The most effective rehabilitation measure that the American department of justice can implement is to subject the parolees to different mentorship programs. In-prison Rehabilitation Programs will also help in reducing the rate of recidivism among most inmates (Stohr & Walsh, 2022). Subjecting parolees to various educational sessions, such as driving school classes, will help in improving the parolees’ career technical education (Stohr & Walsh, 2022). Parolees who have portrayed positive change in behavior due to various rehabilitation programs should be given another chance to live a normal life without being subjected to discrimination leading to stigma.
References
Franco-Paredes, C., Ghandnoosh, N., Latif, H., Krsak, M., Henao-Martinez, A. F., Robins, M., Barahona, L. V., & Poeschla, E. M. (2020). Decarceration and community reentry in the COVID-19 era. The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Stohr, M. K., & Walsh, A. (2022). Corrections: the essentials. Sage Publications.
Zhang, R., Srinivasan, S., Nnadi, V., Price-Tucker, A., Zhou, A., Charroux, A., Tenzin, C., Robertson, E., Abdalla, H., Gu, J., Barton, J., Keselj, M., Bernstein, O., Alexis, P., Odayappan, S., & Escalante, T. (2019). Successful reentry: a community-level analysis.