Service dogs and inmate rehabilitation

Service dogs and inmate rehabilitation

There are 4 major reasons as to why criminals are imprisoned; incapacitation, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation. While they all seem to have a legitimate argument, the first 3 seem to have one major flaw.

While incapacitation prevents an offender from perpetrating another crime during incarceration, it fails to look beyond its nose. It fails to consider what happens after an inmate leaves jail, and how (or why) a large percentage seems to end up back in our correctional facilities.
Deterrence on the other hand has been widely criticized for its effectiveness. Thomas Loughran and colleagues (2011) describing their research findings on serious and chronic offenders stated that, “The vast majority of (these) comprehensive summaries found no convincing evidence that harsher sanctions reduce crime.”
Retribution, like ‘incapacitation’, fails to look beyond its immediate effect and disregards completely that which happens past the actual jail time.

The 4th approach, however, provides a more broad-minded viewpoint, which advocates in favor of rehabilitation as the main reason for incarceration. This process seeks to use the period of imprisonment to change a convicted criminal into a better citizen. An example of such programs are those currently running in Florida and which sees inmates working with dogs.

The State of Florida Department of Corrections, through private funding, has for the past years been organizing service dog programmes within their correctional facilities. Service dogs are trained by Florida state inmates, who have been themselves trained by a professional dog trainer. Through these programs, inmates are gaining inter-personal life skills which in turn aid their re-entry into society and deter their return to the prison system. While no systematic studies have been made, anecdotal evidence suggests that these programs have a positive psychosocial impact on the inmates.

Looking at prima facie data, it appears to contribute towards lower recidivism rates, as well as a drop in behavioral infractions among inmates. In turn the dogs are being trained with the aim of helping various worthy causes which vary from assistance for people with disabilities, soldiers with PTSD and children with autism. Other programs are aimed at improving the chances of adoptability of dogs which would otherwise be euthanized.

Programs, like the ones being currently implemented in Florida provide for a holistic circle, whereby inmates are providing an invaluable service to the community, whilst gaining skills that will help them transition from incarceration towards freedom.
Harsher punishments and mass incarceration fail to see beyond the primitive need for retribution. As civilized people of a country based on the founding principle of freedom and human rights we have a duty to remember that offenders, criminals, inmates, prisoners, or whatever else one might choose to call them, do not cease to be humans by reason of the act they perpetrated. As a society we need to rise above the need for revenge and help our fellow humans’ reform.