Why might residential facilities be better able to address the needs of various offenders than other supervision options?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Criminals teach one another how to engage in criminal activity. Indeed, a number
of studies have found that the longer an inmate spends in prison, the more likely he or
she is to recidivate. The general notion is that prison breeds criminals and does not
actually work to rehabilitate them. Thus, our nation’s prisons encourage the
development of inmate subcultures that ensure that crime will continue. This explains, at
least in part, the high recidivism rate among parolees and those released from prison. It
is for this reason that community-based residential treatment facilities are considered a
much better option than prison, whenever such options are available and feasible for
public safety. These facilities generate definitions that are conducive to treatment, not
crime. Further, peers selected for such programs will be in them for reintegrative
purposes, thus diminishing the impact of pro-criminal peers that one is much more likely
to find in prison. The environments associated with residential treatment facilities are
designed to specifically counter those associations that are related to criminality.