OPINION: Rehabilitation or punishment?

The other day, I was scrolling through the Associated Press website when I came across an article titled “Ohio prison holds first-ever five-course meal open to public on facility grounds.” My first thought and emotion was horror.

My mind jumped to the more than 150 private, for-profit prisons that put their inmates in terrible environments and force them to work simply to bring in more revenue for the prison owners. Is this just another way for the prison to make money?

Luckily, my first thought was drastically incorrect. Instead, this public five-course meal was a showcase of skills the inmates had learned during their time in prison. Grafton Correctional Institution, in northeast Ohio, uses a program called EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute to prepare incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals for work in the hospitality industry.

In this program, qualifying inmates are able to grow fruits, vegetables and herbs in the prison garden. They then learn to prepare this food. According to the AP story, “The six-month course provides training to incarcerated people, teaching them cooking techniques, safety and sanitation, knife skills and other certifications needed to work in a fine dining establishment.”

Chef Brandon Chrostowski partners with the staff at Grafton to teach the inmates about the culinary arts. He said the program came from the belief that “every human being, regardless of their past, has the right to a fair and equal future.”

Grafton warden Jerry Spatny said with most of the men going back to the outside world eventually, they need to learn life skills so they don’t come back. “We want our neighbors to be prepared to be law-abiding citizens, and that’s what this program is about. This gives them reentry level skills so that when they go home, they can be successful in that environment.”

I think this is an important mindset to have when thinking of incarcerated people. Almost everyone that goes into prison will eventually be coming back to society. While prison is certainly a punishment, it’s also supposed to reform and rehabilitate inmates.

According to the federal Office of Justice Programs, 8.2% of the prison population is serving life sentences. That means more than 90% of inmates will be coming back to regular life after serving time.

Let’s imagine time in prison does nothing to the inmate in terms of PTSD or other psychological effects. Even without all these issues, inmates generally aren’t put through any programs to combat the behavior or thinking that put them in prison in the first place.

While it certainly depends on why a person has been sent, many could receive help so they don’t continue when released. Drug addicts need to learn to deal with their addiction and the likely mental health issues that led to this addiction. What led someone to commit a crime? Did an inmate steal because they needed to take care of their family, or was it just for the thrill? If for the first, help them find ways to provide on their own or how to find resources offered by various nonprofits and government organizations. If the second, consistently meeting with a psychologist could do a lot of good.

Many people who end up incarcerated have not had many of the same experiences and opportunities others have had. I think it’s important for the inmates to have the opportunity to even the playing field, such as with earning their GED or learning basic skills such as the cooking and gardening mentioned earlier.

Now let’s go back to the mental health issues I mentioned before. Obviously prison isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park. While I do think there should be more rehabilitation aspects to prison, it is still a punishment. However, because of this, many people leave prison with severe PTSD.

Some people are OK with this. Some people say it’s just another part of the punishment. “Can’t do the time? Don’t do the crime.” Many people are in prison because of mistakes made on the worst day of their life. We need to stop forgetting that these are human beings.

But even if you forget the humanity aspect, look at it practically. Almost all of these inmates will be coming back to live amongst us. Do you want someone thrown back into the outside world, full of trauma and without help? If we equip people with coping strategies and actually treat them as human, the world will be a much better and safer place.