Writing Two

Does Parole Work?
Everyone knows that prisons in America are heavily overpopulated. How do you fix this problem? It seems that the apparent solution is to release the criminals who have been cooperative while in jail. This is called parole; parole officers are supposed to constantly check in with the freed criminals. As we have seen in the news lately; this system does not always work. Philip Garrido was sent to prison in 1976 for the violent rape of a minor, but of his 50 year sentence, he only served 11. He was released on good behavior.
The problem is that not all criminals have disrespect for authority. Most criminals are highly religious a fact, which in itself is placing authority over their minds. In turn, some sociopaths could be quite pleasant in jail, so pleasant that the parole board could forgive and forget the reason why they were dubbed a criminal. As many people believe, some criminals can never recover. Many psychotherapists will tell you that sexual offenders are incapable of recovery to lead normal lives with normal sexual fantasies.
Judges classify sex offenders into levels from one to three; three being the highest risk to the public. Because of our overpopulated prisons, we allow some of the cooperative inmates to be paroled. And so, Philip Garrido was free to roam and rape as he pleased. Of course he reoffended, but this went undetected until early September 2009. In 1991 he and his wife kidnapped a young girl named Jaycee Dugard. This poor child was kept in Garrido’s back yard for a total of 18 years. During this time Garrido was still on parole and was still being monitored on a regular basis.
Garrido’s neighbors knew he was a registered child molester because of the public registry online. In 2006 a worried neighbor called the police after she had seen children and tents all over Garrido’s back yard. The officer went to the residence and talked to Garrido about zoning ordinances. Supposedly all law personnel are connected to a main data base informing them of a persons “rap sheet.” The responding officer didn’t have this technology, so the officer left the premises thinking that he had resolved the problem.
How they caught Garrido was a complete fluke. Garrido actually brought Jaycee and her two children (fathered by him) to his parole meeting. Maybe he had a guilty conscience? We may never know. Either way, I see the fact that she was held hostage in his backyard for 18 years as a huge fault on our legal system. There are many ways that this could have been stopped. Our country is not the only with these horrendous problems. Yet other countries handle these problems differently.
Sweden’s government has pioneered rehabilitation rather than punishment. Their goal is to fix criminals. This all involves a long-term program dedicated to fixing the original mental problem of the patient AKA the criminal. I feel that putting non-violent criminals in a hard, ugly, environment forces them to react in a criminal fashion; making them even worse. If our prisons weren’t filled with non-violent criminals, maybe this problem would not exist. I feel the way we deal with our non-violent criminals makes them want to retaliate against the system. This goes from hurting officers to hurting other inmates.
For someone who did not commit a violent crime, prison life would completely ruin them. Putting these addicts and thieves in jail makes many people despise law enforcement. I know of many people who are literally terrified of police. If the judicial system really wants to fix their image, they need to start at the core of the problem. This indicates keeping non-violent criminals out of jail and in rehabilitation programs. Then our correctional facilities would have time and space to deal with the criminals like Garrido who really, truly, need to be there. If our legal system was the way that it should be, Garrido would have never been released (being a level 2 sex offender) to the public. He would have remained in serious therapy and hopefully have been chemically castrated. =D