Should a conviction still be allowed to hold ex-felons back?

[DrPhil]

As for Kevin's first post:
That's because the criminal justice system and general public are incapacitation and retribution oriented and not rehabilitation and reintegration oriented. There are pros and cons in the incapacitation and retribution approaches.

Societies should punish the offenders but think about what happens when they are released from prison. Who will they be around and what will they be doing? It's wiser to offer counseling for those who need it, intervention, job training, educational assistance. Those are all worthy investments if you're interested in slowing the revolving door of the prison system. There will ALWAYS be crime and inmates so the prison system will never lose customers and money in that regard. We simply don't need to waste money and resources on the same inmates over and over again; and we don't need the age, race, and socioeconomic demographic that is largely represented in the prison system. Society doesn't want to address the socioeconomic issues that lead some to commit instrumental crimes to make money in the first place, and Americans don't want to address how to reintegrate people into society and reduce recidivism. You either have to address the issue beforehand, during, or afterwards. You can't escape the issue and pretend that you can lock people up with no thought to what happens after sentencing.

A smart America would see how investing in OUR future isn't synonymous with giving offenders a free ride. They repay their debt to society while incarcerated (well, actually, the majority of offenders create their own society, smuggle contraband, and learn how to become a "better criminal"--these people are also more likely to reoffend) and they will continue to repay their debt IF they get jobs and pay taxes.

Dammit.

As for Kevins second post:
I believe in free will combined with social factors. Life is too complex to pretend as though it is one or the other. Having free will doesn't mean there aren't contexts more conducive to certain types of offenses. Social factors don't mean that everyone who is poor, for instance, becomes an offender--most poor people aren't offenders.