Jails: A place where people are kept when they have been arrested and are being punished for a crime Rehabilitation: To bring someone or something back to a normal state or health condition after an illness, injury, drug problem, etc.
While incarcerated, I spend my time working out, reading, writing, praying, and talking with guys who are passionate about reintegrating into the community and becoming productive citizens of society. I was very astonished and totally amazed by how much hope can come out of a place of hopelessness.
Nevertheless, I am flabbergasted by the lack of rehabilitation the D.C. jail/ D.C. Central Detention Center has to offer. Also, I am very taken aback by the dehumanizing conditions men and women alike are being subjected to. It seems as though due to the lack of programs, jail job opportunities, reentry preparation courses, and life skills courses, there can not possibly or honestly be any form of rehabilitation realistically.
There is hardly anything to inspire or uplift the hopes of the people who have been confined to a system that was systematically made to crush, discourage, and destroy the confidence, ambitions, and hopes of the very people who are, for the most part, unconsciously, being used as the cattle that upholds such a system.
So I have a few questions.
- How do you rehabilitate and restore people who have been confined and affected by a system that was created to crush them mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?
- Can you successfully rehabilitate a community of people who have been targeted by a system created to destroy them in every form and fashion?
- Last but not least… How do you rehabilitate someone who has been institutionalized?
