Authentic rehabilitation of criminals:
A psychiatrist’s view

Rehabilitation is a pronoun used too often, 90% of these people incarcerated are placed in prison to keep tham out of the criminal system for however long they are sentenced and most time the sentences are too short.

I'm a proponent of what many will see as cruel and unusual punishment. I believe that prisoners should be subjected to the same cruelties that the rest of is must suffer. Up and ready for work/school every day. Engage in value added activity (or learn how to) that equates at a minimum to earning your sustenance. If not, no TV, and on bread and water. Provide above a sustenance level of work, half goes to victim compensation and you keep half so you're less likely to resort to crime on the outside. Also all other privileges are tied to your effort. I suspect had many if not most ever lived by these rules to begin with, they wouldn't be in the slammer.

These sentences for non-capital crimes need to be a lot shorter and a lot harder. When life on the outside is easier than life on the inside, there is a motivation not to return. Easily attainable by working/schooling 16 hours a day, sleeping eight. Six days a week. Let them rest on Sunday. By “hot bunking” we are now at a 33% occupancy rate.

I'm sure that there are more like that in prison, but sadly, centuries of experience shows that they are a very small minority of those in prison. When you get past the minor offenses into the violent crimes, especially when committed by young offenders, like the myriad of teen murderers that we find today, the odds are vanishingly small that they will ever be anything but a dangerous 'ticking bomb' ready to kill or maim at the slightest provocation. Finding the good people to release is worth the search, but we must be careful not to get innocent normal people killed by being foolish in our selection of who we set free. A great majority of the people in prisons really need to be isolated for very long periods from the rest of us, for our own safety.

Right on. And that one Dude said as much just before being sentenced and leaping over the court bench at his judge.

Why do we have prisons? Are they to protect the public, punish, or to reform and re-orient? The answer is: all three. They hold different degrees of importance but are interdependent. For example, if convicts aren't reformed how is the public protected? Punishment educates and reforms very effectively, and segregation is severe punishment. Ignore any of these aspects and the public is imperiled. We have ignored the prison system for too long, surrendering it to gangs and allowing things like rape and abuse to fester, indeed to be assumed an integral part of the institution's functioning. This is a hideous, grave lapse. Over the last few years I've discovered another reason for immediate concern; something I never believed I'd see in my lifetime has become routine, even lauded by more than half of our dominant class. Now political dissenters are face long incarceration for petty or nonexistent crimes. That's you and me.

The best criminal psychology research ever done was performed by one Psychiatrist, Dr. Yochelson and his assistant, Psychologist, Dr. Samuelson. During a 30+ year period evaluating criminals convicted of all kinds of violent, heinous crimes, they documented and summarized their findings in a 3-volume work, "The Criminal Personality." In the book they make the profound statement that these criminals in large measure need "habilitation" before they can be "re-habilitated." Many of these men and women who commit vile crimes against others were never taught responsibility, or societal standards, nor do they know how to relate or empathize with anyone else. The Authors developed a surprisingly robust system of "habilitating" men who volunteered for their study/program. The amount of intense scrutiny placed upon them was about like taking them back to being 5 year old children, counting the change they got back from the ice cream man. At any moment these men could be kicked out of the program, and that would mean going back to general population. Interestingly, once they were released and back in society, it still took convicted rapists 3+ years to even begin to feel true empathy for their victims. I strongly recommend anyone interested in the criminal mind to read these works.