In history we never asked what the underlying problem was because we were always too wrapped-up in our own emotional reactions, judging, and imposing—giving the seemingly bad person huge doses of guilt, telling him or her how bad they were, levying punishment, etc. So let's replace dysfunctional and childish tantrum-like reactions that just worsen the underlying problem with thoughts on how to solve the problem. So now let's take a compassionate look at the inmate's underlying problem: Let's ask who prisoners are (what they are like), why they are in prison, and how we can “fix it all.”
When we understand why a person ended up in prison, we can change such casual factors which may still be operating in an inmate's life. Ultimately, by doing so, we “turn them into” a person who no longer has a need to choose illegal avenues to get what he or she wants in life. As you will see from reading this article, an important element called for in the solution of the underlying problem calls for opening up a legal means to “personal power.” This is something like pointing out or mapping out the correct course for them to take in life.
Let's look at the possibilities in an inmate's early life which could have led them to their current dilemma. Once we understand the common casual factors we are then armed with the information we need to make an intelligent decision as to what can be done to correct the problem.
Many but not all incarcerated individuals began their early life with the same high ideals and good intents as those of a hero. What happened, then? The individual may have poor or negative beliefs, in which case the proper remedy would be to educate. Or, if that isn't the problem, perhaps for one reason or another he or she couldn't find the means to express his or her ideals. The individual in question didn't have the ability to feed the family, achieve goals, or the proper support structures or resources most of us take for granted. He or she may have been hindered, in a highly disadvantageous situation, or even abused. For one or more of these reasons his or her ability to succeed legally seemed to be blocked. (This is actually a problem of not believing in, or being aware of one's personal power to overcome obstacles in a positive way.) The hero, on the other hand, found a way.
Since a human being has a need to be in control, to have effective power, to be a force in the world for good, the seeming block(s) could have caused a slip, or in his or her eyes seemed to call for a desperate act of an illegal nature. Justification—blaming someone or society would also likely be involved. His or her response to their failed “personal powers” could result in a desperate grasping attempt to overcome or circumvent the seeming block in an illegal process of some kind. Even more common is that the illegal act was situational and never intended or premeditated. In such a case it is likely that whatever had happened earlier in life caused frustration, an emotional problem, a bipolar condition, drinking problem or addiction which contributed to a “slip.”
To solve the underlying problem or failed recognition of, or ability to utilize one's full “personal powers,” society needs only to open his legal means to personal power and expression of ideals, and show him (in intimate terms) that he has a social means of assistance (resources) he can trust. Accordingly, the need to circumvent the problem by illegal means would no longer exist.
It would be very easy for social services to help him, to show him how to progress legally, and in helping him in this way his attitude toward society would be tempered. Criminal (anti-social) attitude could be short-circuited in this way. The cure is not an extraordinary request, or a complex prescription, and does not involve a significant expenditure at all. It's simply a restoration of the basic rights more fortunate people take for granted, to open up avenues to personal and social achievement and recognition.
The restoration of personal power aided by society serves an additional purpose that is even more important in that it dissolves the primary cause of criminal mentality—a particular mindset. Anti-social attitudes are almost always behind and driving criminal actions. When an unloved child is loved, he or she is healed. In the same way, when the anti-social person is helped by society his criminal mind is healed. How can a society that is helping him be his enemy? His anger is reduced. He can't so easily justify crime. He has no one to blame, etc. With the legal pathway cleared, why take the criminal road anyway? Like the hero, he now has a means to express his ideals. If as a society we trusted human nature, we would automatically apply this simple cure. To do otherwise would seem crazy.
The Criminal Justice System (CJS), however, entrenched in primordial judgment, does the exact opposite. A particular prosecutor, judge, counselor, the media, or other agent may be too quick to label him and drag him down in various ways, mentally and emotionally. The effect of being shamed and beat up in this way, combined with rights restrictions by the court, compound his original problem of not being able to legally progress. His anti-social mind set turns him into an enemy of society.
Again, this is a very dangerous practice because so many that are categorized as being criminal justify recidivism because of a particular set of personal beliefs through which they see a particular individual or society as deliberately preventing their forward movement in life. This thinking, combined with situational and/or social impediments likely prompted them to rationalize a criminal act in the first place. By judging and restricting him one plays right into his thinking, literally fueling or supporting the beliefs that in his mind prompt and justify his criminal position.
The restrictions placed on felons, and sex offenders in particular are endless. A sex offender can easily become a murderer (Leslie Williams 2008 in a case in point). This is because of society's disgust, treatment and conditions of release which will cause many to “snap.” Just being in prison restricts most common liberties. However, that's only the beginning. Many new state laws continue the process after the prisoner has served his time and paid his debt to society. One is everywhere stigmatized. One cannot even travel freely, live and work in certain areas, not to mention the difficulty of getting a job, license, support or help. Everywhere and in every way his or her legal avenues of living and progressing are blocked or severely hindered. It's no wonder he or she returns to crime; or becomes criminal (if they were wrongfully convicted, targeted or excessively charged in the first place).
Most criminals come from a particular background in which someone unfairly interfered with their needs being met in the first place, and in the process probably also led them to feel that something was wrong with them or that they were “no good.” Added to that, he or she must suffer more of the same from the CJS. All the CJS does then, is expertly manage to compound his or her original problems that led him or her to crime in the first place, and probably, if he wasn't previously so inclined, made him highly anti-social and perhaps violent due to the effects of cumulative extreme frustration. Now your children are really in danger. Society is not safer. Nor has the criminal problem been solved.