Down the Rabbit Hole: How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime

It should come as no surprise that following the Clinton-era crime bills and the massive increase in prison construction throughout the nation over the past twenty years that, overall, crime would be down. But this has come with exorbitant costs, both in terms of dollars and human lives. The United States has an unprecedented two million offenders behind bars at an annual cost of $70 billion. And this has paradoxically led to a widespread case of buyer's remorse. Seeing such a mass incarceration as unsustainable, a growing number of people in recent years have been calling for criminal justice reform. Consequently, lawmakers have not only begun to enact schemes designed to reduce prison sentenced for many off those currently incarcerated, there had been a more liberal use of paroles as well. The question of how well the prison experience has worked to correct offenders is therefore perhaps more important now than ever. Are we as a society to watch the correction's pendulum swing back, only to witness a precipitous rise in crime once again? Historically, incarceration has had an extremely poor record of reforming criminals. The sad fact is that reoffending is a likelier outcome following a prison sentence than is rehabilitation. And although the reasons for this are complex, much of the problem certainly lies with the correction's culture itself. Deconstructing that culture, Down The Rabbit Hole offers a unique perspective on why corrections more often than not fails to achieve its stated goals.