The question being asked is if the criminal system reforms a criminal and in looking at the criminal system now, I would have to say no it does not reform them. There is no action that is taken place if they disobey an order. If a person has a warrant out on them they could lead a normal life and be well endowed and living in another state or another county before the police catches up to them. Therefore they are not really paying for what they did. Does the system work in reform? No it doesn’t. Bail is so set at so little and a lawyer is provided for those who can’t afford one and no punishment is given if they check themselves out of rehab early so what lesson is learned. I was once told that if a man (or woman) had not changed his (or her) ways by the time they are 30 that they are set in there ways and that it is much harder for a man to change his ways than for a woman. Considering that most of the criminals in the prison are men and not women it would have to go with the facts in saying that prison does not reform criminals.
We, in the normal society, give most criminals a slap on the wrist for the wrong they have done. Drugs, stealing and raping are all listed as just a slap on the wrist. Four or five months in prison or jail is nothing to someone that had already spent a year or two in there for a separate crime. So, the criminal ask themselves why not? Why not do it they say? They do this because unless they decide to murder someone they’ll be back out on the streets and then be more respected by there peers because they took the heat for the crime that was committed.
If prison reformed criminals why should the question even be proposed? A criminal is defined as someone who has done something so wrong that it is considered to be illegal by the state in which they live or by the nation in which they reside. A criminal is not defined by his good deeds but yet he is defined by what he has done wrong in this world. One or two wrong deeds for a criminal will sometime over take one or two good deeds done by the same man. If society looks at a criminal by what type of wrong he has done, then the criminal is just going to keep on looking and doing what he can do to be respected by the society in which he resides in. A criminal has ways of doing things that may not seem right or relevant at the time but some would have rather have a bad reputation within the halls of which they live than have a reputation of good.