User:Sstarr98/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Rehabilitation (penology)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I believe that one of the biggest issues with our criminal justice system today is that our prisons provide places for punishment, but not for rehabilitation. Convicted citizens have subpar access to education and mental health resources, and with so many emotional, physical, and mental considerations for the incarcerated, many of which cannot be documented (or which the government refuses to document) aside from personal account, it isn't surprising that many people leave prison far worse off than when they were convicted due to loss of family, loss of ability to vote, loss of access to public housing, etc. Rehabilitation is something that I believe there should be more information and sourcing on, and thus, I wanted to know what Wikipedia had to offer - and what I could offer in return!

Evaluate the article
Note: I hope to come back to this article later to make some of the changes I discuss below, but for now, I am only mentioning these changes so that others might see them and so that I can remember my impressions of the article.

While the lead of this article is concise and informative in many ways, I believe it fails to articulate enough on the last sentence - the goal of rehabilitation - given that rehabilitation itself is a goal. There is also no layout of the sections of the article at all, which I think could be helpful because the sections themselves are not very thorough.

I think a variety of perspectives are presented, though I think that the criticism section could use some expansion given that many sources I've seen and people I've heard speak on the matter believe that rehabilitation itself needs a rehabilitation. The current criticisms focus on negative aspects of the system in place, but do not provide alternatives or improvements, which I believe can be found in spades with a bit more research.

Most of the sources seem reliable and relevant, although I question the Huffpost and The Daily Beast as reputable and reliable sources of news. I don't know how those sources are viewed in this community, and would love feedback on that.

The talk page suggests more criticism of rehabilitation, which I fully support, and also asks for a more thorough history of rehabilitation in the function of prisons.

I also think that more international rehabilitation research could be done. The information on other countries is quite sparse, and some of the countries mentioned as well as some not mentioned have quite successful rehabilitation programs that could be referenced.

There are no images on the page. Though I am not sure how many images exist depicting the reality of the rehabilitation system, it might be nice to find some media on the matter, if only of the facilities of prisons or rehabilitation centers or buildings.

I think the article provides a decent skeleton for what it should be, but feels rather un-fleshed in many ways. With some work, which I hope to contribute to, I think that these bones could make a very nice source.

Sstarr98 (talk) 00:53, 3 September 2021 (UTC)