The Hardness of Hard Treatment



The Hardness of Hard Treatment

Introduction

Imprisonment is considered to be the most important type of sanction in the modern criminal justice systems. In most of the countries, we have observed a substantial increase in the population of prisoners in the last decade. What has also been observed is that the increase in the prison population is resulting in the worsening of the life conditions of the prisoners. And this is what John Kleinig has discussed in his, The Hardness of Hard Treatment.

Discussion

The main issue is regarding the fact that how the propensity to commit criminal acts is affected by the conditions of incarceration. Klienig believes that we might be making matters worse for the prisoner and for the other people around them by making them live in harsh and inconsiderate conditions. An example is that suppose there are two individuals who both got the same punishment of one year of imprisonment. They both have to serve their sentence in two different prisons. The point to observe is that both the prisons will have different conditions and this means that both the prisoners, although they have the same punishment, but the degree of their punishment will vary according to the conditions of the prison they are in.

So this means that the conditions of incarceration may have an effect on the actual sanctions that arte determined by the punishment of imprisonment and thus, on the propensity to get involved ion other criminal activities in the future. Because there are many prisoners who get the punishment of imprisonment but for most of them, it is not for their whole life time. This means that after serving the required amount of time, they will be released and will come out. So it is very important that we understand that the conditions of the prisons have an impact on the prisoners to again start committing crimes when they get released. When we look at it from the perspective of policy, we can say that it is much easier and less costly to change and make better the living conditions in prison, rather than engaging into other interventions such as increasing incapacitation through sentences, for the purpose of reducing the probability of the prisoner to engage in to criminal activities on his release.

In most of the local, state and federal facilities, including those that are owned by private contractors, the detainees and the prisoners have to go through such conditions that are degrading, dangerous and abusive. The ever increasing population of the prisoners, because of the harsh sentencing laws that the legislators have been refusing to change, the immigrant detention policies and the restricted budgets have resulted in the unwillingness of the government to invest into resources and staff that are a crucial requirement so that humane and safe conditions of confinement or imprisonment can be ensured.

Because of these failures, the human rights of the prisoners have been violated and they have been denied their right to be treated in a considerate humane ...