If a person is to change, they need to believe they can. They need positive reinforcement. They do not need frustrations placed in front of them, but taken away. When they are weak, they need support. And, patience.
Our parole and probation programs fail our ex-convicts. There is little in them to provide them help. We do not help find jobs for them. Rather, we just demand that they have those jobs. Now, since society often does not want to hire the ex-con, that becomes problematic. When they fall out of housing, and feel desperate and unable to find it, rather than helping them find it, we toss them back in jail for not having it.
And, we assess them fees with no regard they are too poor to pay for them.
If someone had just been in the hospital, would we give them crutches, or a whip across their back? I'm not sure the ex-con is so different. They, too, are rehabilitating. We do not think of them as tender and wounded, but they are. They've just been in jail. They exit wondering if society will accept them. They wonder if they will be able to find a job, if their families will take them back, if they will be able to stay off drugs, and away from friends that haunted their pasts. And, we do consider that all these things make them fragile? They are. Perhaps as much as any human being, they are. They are under so much challenge, at any point they could snap under the heavy pressure.
And do, time after time.
Think of them as fragile, and you will have a better chance of not breaking them. Think of them and treat them only as hardened criminals, and you will get what you asked for. Give them no avenue to escape their pasts, and they won't. They will be the hardened criminal because society offers them no other road to travel down.
Our parole and probation programs are more of a whip than a loving arm. We need to toss out the system we've got, and replace it with one that really can change them, instead of just grinding them down.
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