You're describing the parole system. That already exists. It's not terribly successful, but that's why it exists.
And that's also why I qualified what I was saying with the prison system dramatically needing an overhaul in order to rehabilitate people to make it really work. The simple fact of the matter is that people do commit crimes. Always have and probably always will. They should be punished, yes. They should serve their time, yes. But they should also be rehabilitated, which, no, not really happening. If anything, prison currently makes a person MORE likely to re-offend once released. Releasing someone with a felony on their record already precludes them from being eligible for most jobs. Actively doing things to further isolate and ostracize former prisoners only increases the chance of them re-offending. Rehabilitation and reintegration to society are the two most important things we could do in regards to prisoners. The latter can't happen effectively without the former happening first though.
A) Not everyone receives parole.
B) Parole does not demand someone gets a job and becomes a useful member of society.
C) No.
Parole is basically just “we are letting you serve part (or all) of your sentence outside of prison. Don’t fuck up too much or you’ll go to prison.”
A lot of people with a criminal record don't get much work. Mandating them without assurance of a job is just putting them back in prison.
There's a stigma against hiring ex convicts, and honestly, with the recidivism rate/lack of real rehabilitation, it's somewhat warranted. We employ a work release program at my business, and it's great for the most part. We just had our first hire after release of an ex con who turned out to be a spectacular machinist by virtue of the fact that he's been making tractor pull engines his entire life. Day he was released from prison he was making *~40k a year. On the flipside of that though, we've had a large number of work release prisoners screw up their chances at both their job here inside and once they're outside by doing typical BS prison stuff, like stealing 50 cents of merchandise from the thrift shop, or in the more severe cases, doing drugs in the bathroom. For every one we hire when they're released, probably 3 get kicked out of the program because they just can't function in normal society quite right. And I should mention that these are all men hand picked for the program because they're within 2 years of release and the correctional facility feels they'll be able to do well.
Last edited by Stumplicker; 04-23-2019 at 04:56 PM.