American prisons focused on punitive, not restorative, justice

FINDLAY — For decades, Americans have been told that incarceration deters crime, yet research shows that the U.S. criminal justice system often deepens the very conditions that lead people into it, cycling individuals through jails that have become de facto mental health facilities. Mental illness, poverty, addiction and homelessness routinely go untreated, leaving jails to absorb people in crisis, a role they were never meant to take on. Across the country, correctional systems house individuals with severe mental health needs simply because no other infrastructure exists to support them. Inside, jails offer limited stabilization before releasing people back into the same circumstances, often without long-term treatment, housing or support, thrusting them into a cycle that is difficult to escape. A report released in April by The Sentencing Project, a coalition that advocates for a more humane response to crime, found that nearly half a million people leave U.S. prisons each year, yet reentry programs intended to help them reintegrate "do very little to support transition." The group notes that stigma, lack of preparation, missing documentation, limited financial resources and poor access to services make reentry even more challenging. It also argues that building better reentry outcomes for inmates is "critical" to building safer communities. One potential barrier to this goal is that, as legal scholar John F. Pfaff, notes in his 2017 book "Locked In," the criminal justice system is not one but multiple systems that work independently and sometimes actively against each other, making coordinated reform for prisoners difficult. "What we call the criminal justice system is, in practice, a mishmash of independent, often competitive bureaucracies, all attentive to different constituencies and facing different political and economic incentives," Pfaff writes. "... One prominent criminologist has argued that since the 1990s, punishment in the United States seems to have focused on 'throwing away the key.'" Up until the Nixon administration, prisons and jails focused on rehabilitating inmates for successful reintegration into society, offering inmates opportunities to learn life and occupational skills. However, the U.S. prison system moved away from rehabilitative justice as scholars discredited the idea that inmates could be properly reformed. Some critics scoffed at the racial inequities inherent in the system, while others focused on parole boards and judges being too "soft" on crime. Scholars had long given discourse over the need for prison reform, though sociologist Robert Martinson famously concluded in 1974 that "nothing works," arguing that correctional treatments had no "appreciable" effect on recidivism. Author and sociologist Michelle Phelps, in her paper, "Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs," argues that the shift away from rehabilitative justice is likely responsible for decimating reintegration programming in jails and prisons. Phelps posits that historical events like the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal made the public less confident in what she calls, "the malleability of human nature." "In this new world, the public had increasingly less concern for, and more fear of, felons, who were presented as racialized 'super-predators,' unable to be reformed," she wrote. At the same time, advocates pushed for the closure of psychiatric hospitals and a return to community-based care. Facilities shut down, but adequate community treatment never materialized. As historian Anne E. Parsons explains in "From Asylum to Prison," many former patients were released without support, leading police to respond to behaviors linked to mental illness, addiction and homelessness with arrest rather than treatment. "As people were released from mental hospitals back into the community, many did not receive adequate mental health care or social services," Parsons said. "As a result, their behaviors were criminalized as police responded to behaviors linked to alcoholism, drug abuse and trespassing with arrest and jail time… In the late twentieth century, policy makers moved away from the rehabilitative model of addressing social issues such as drug use, crime and poverty and instead used tough measures such as surveillance, punishment, coercion and quarantine. By 1996, the United States spent far more on corrections than it did on social welfare programs such as food stamps and welfare grants." Instead of true deinstitutionalization, many psychiatric patients were "transinstitutionalized," or simply moved from one carceral space to another. Scholar Liat Ben-Moshe calls this phenomenon the "carceral continuum." She also advocates for better, more humane and less traumatic facilities. Nixon's 1971 declaration of a "War on Drugs" further accelerated incarceration, funneling low-level, non-violent prisoners — disproportionately people of color — into the system and contributing to overcrowding that can exacerbate both inmate and correctional staff mental health and lead to a cycle of recidivism that many struggle to escape. Fifty years later, the criminal justice system is functioning as it was never meant to: as a care facility that forces police and correctional staff to take on a job they never signed up for or trained for, leaving people in crisis caught in a system that confines them instead of treating them. Looking locally The consequences are visible in Hancock County. Last year, the Hancock County Sheriff Office spent 42% of its budget, or approximately $5.1 million, on corrections. In the same time period, inmates in the Hancock County Justice Center received mental health care 975 times. Data provided by Brookelyn Ernst, clinical provider with Family Resource Center and for the inmates at the Hancock County jail, indicate the most common diagnoses in the inmate population in 2025 include schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and alcohol, opioid and other substance-use disorders. During the process of being booked into the facility, inmates are screened for both mental and physical health issues, said Capt. Jesse Sterrett, Hancock County jail administrator. Both the inmate and the arresting officer are asked questions during intake. The officer is asked questions about observations made immediately prior to and during the arrest and the inmate is asked about mental and physical health. Once booked, the inmate is also given a drug screening, a mental health screening and the Ohio Risk Assessment System, a scoring tool meant to assess individuals at different points in the criminal justice system in the hopes of determining the likelihood of recidivism. If incarcerated for 14 days or more, they are also seen by medical staff. "Some of (the screenings) are immediately when they come in the door, some of it's within 12 hours and then some of it's within 14 days," Sterrett said. In the interim and after being screened, he said, mental health providers are available to inmates for six to eight hours a day during the work week, but can be available at other times for emergencies. "There's really availability whenever they need it, depending on what the situation and condition may dictate," he said. If it's determined an inmate needs to be placed on suicide watch, corrections staff must observe them "based on the acuity of the threats," he said. A pre-screener, contracted with Family Resource Center, is contacted and interviews the inmate, adjusting care based on intent, Sterrett said. He added that it sometimes becomes a "balancing act" to ensure inmates do not have the ability to harm themselves or others, but are not denied their rights. Somehow, he said, inmates can be under constant watch and still find ways to hurt themselves. But the biggest challenge when working with suicidal inmates is finding space to house them. If someone requires constant watch, this pulls staff away from other tasks and inmates, straining the workload for others and incurring a "significant" toll on corrections staff that can erode mental health over time, Sterrett said. He noted some inmates who could be considered more "emotionally unstable" threaten or attack officers and staff regularly worries about walking in on someone attempting to harm themselves. He believes the HCSO offers good training and support for its staff, but that it may be difficult for anything to ever be enough, simply because of the nature of the work. Corrections officers, he said, are interacting with inmates with mental health disorders "24/7." While some inmates experience "low-acuity" conditions like anxiety and depression, others who are incarcerated experience "high-acuity" conditions in which there may be a greater disconnection from reality. This includes people who experience high levels of psychosis and dissociative disorders. Many of these inmates, he said, may not belong in a jail and would be better served in psychiatric facilities that largely no longer exist. Nationally, the largest psychiatric providers are not hospitals — they are Rikers Island in New York, Cook County Jail in Chicago and the Los Angeles County Jail. Mircea Handru, executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties, said he's frustrated with the lack of infrastructure, noting a bottleneck of available psychiatric beds at the state level. Northwest Ohio Behavioral Hospital in Lucas County, which serves 23 Ohio counties, has 113 beds, down from 3,000 beds four decades ago. The jail verifies diagnoses with community providers and continues prescribed medications. It offers 14 educational programs, but Sterrett said successful reentry also requires personal initiative. While those working in the local criminal justice system including local law enforcement officers, corrections and probation staff and in the courts may be focused on restorative justice, they are working within a broader context that is focused on being "tough on crime" that does not allow for true rehabilitation. Research from the Prison Policy Initiative found that 1 in 4 people who go to jail will be arrested again within the same year, "often those dealing with poverty, mental illness and substance use disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration." Once released, those with a criminal record face more barriers to successful reintegration into society than those without when landlords and employers may not be willing to give these people a chance. In some states, social services like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are restricted for people with a criminal conviction. A federal report found many struggle to support basic needs because of their record. Increasingly, those with mental health issues, addiction, food insecurity or homelessness are pushed through the "revolving door" of the criminal justice system simply because no alternative exists. Law enforcement officers across the system are not trained mental health professionals and yet, are increasingly being treated as such. When thinking about prison reform, many advocates look to the European system of justice. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that Norway's prison system is routinely called one of the most humane in the world. Inmates are confined away from society but are given tools to set them on a better path to success when released. "Punishment is restricted to the separation from society mandated by the custodial sentence itself," a 2021 report read. "Conditions of confinement should themselves be neither punitive nor onerous. Instead, the aim of the incarceration experience (in Norway) is to enable smooth reintegration of people upon release and to lead a life of social responsibility." Conversely, for half a century, U.S. prison policy has focused on retribution rather than addressing the root causes of crime. Experts argue that returning to a rehabilitative, welfarist model, one that expands access to housing, food security, education and healthcare, would reduce crime and improve public safety.