Deviance

I think that punishing deviant people is a societal construct because we don't want people who commit crimes wandering our streets. We try to keep all the bad deviant behavior under control by punishing people. Its hard to avoid punishments towards deviant people because people in the society will find out about letting people off the hook for doing something wrong, and create a scene. In the US we regulate deviant behavior by sending criminals to prisons for certain amounts of time until we think that they have learned their lesson and are willing to change. I think that there a lot of problems with out jails and punishing system because we dont take the time to teach anything, like correct behavior, to the inmates. The government just locks people up for certain amounts of time without even bothering to help them. sometimes people need rehab, but in our system people can only have drug rehab if they fit into certain requirements. Once these people are in jail, they wait until their trials and once they have served their time they are let go. What many people and the government dont seem to understand is that most of those people go right back to jail. When we were watching 30 days there were 2 good examples of people who were let out early and ended up going back to jail after just a few weeks. There was an older man who had been in jail several times before, and told the camera that he was ready to be out in the world and that he was going to try to be better, but in reality people cant just change without help. If the jails had some kind of therapy or group discussions, maybe the inmates will really understand what it means to change. The other example was a teen who had been in jail before for drugs and was able to leave his drug rehab program early. The government shouldn't allow that. People should have to go through the entire program to ensure their health and safety. Being deviant in out society calls upon punishments, but the real question that has to be answered, is if those punishments are actually working or if they are just creating more criminals.