Disenador

Miriam Altamira
Professor Silva
English 311, Section 8
1 April 2011

“The dog: a link between the victim and the abuser”
It’s known that the therapeutic role of animals is mainly used among the “weaker” people in society such as physically or mentally handicap people, socially maladapted persons, chronically ill patients, the lonely, emotionally disturbed people, prisoners, substanceaddicts, elderly and children.

Some general known benefits that come from having or interact with a dog are that the person’s blood pressure drops, anxiety and stress relief. In a study of 93 patients who returned home after heart attacks, only 6 percent of those with dogs died, compared with 44 percent without a pet at home (Friedman 308) This lead to researchers to conclude that pets influencepeople in different ways than other human relationships.

Through this research, I found the influence that a dog as a rehabilitation factor helps two very different groups of “weaker” people: People in Jail who is usually the attacker or the offender, and children who are victims of emotional of physical abuse. Throughout this paper I will show that they have so much in common even when noconnection has been done before.

An unconditional and constant positive regard from the dog can be particularly important to prison inmates, who have been considered vulnerable to social isolation, are left without the social or family support they need during crisis (Strimple 71).

It’s been proved that particularly for men, who have a few social acceptance outlets for touching or caring, andlive lives without touch or acceptance, the close relationship with a dog is therapeutic. Participating Inmates have said, the most important benefit is to have the sense of responsibility instilled from caring for a dependent animal (Strimple 71). With dogs, they are given the opportunity to interact with a living being with not judgmental interests on their past, the companionship they sharebecomes a source of security in such an unfavorable environment. These facts create a safer and less violent environment on prisons, allowing psychological rehabilitation.

Most people are motivated by one concept when thinking on prisoners, and that is punishment. Even though the prisoner rehabilitation is not a goal for many, it must be a priority. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in2004, 95% of those incarcerated in jails or prisons are eventually released back into community (Furst 86). This reveals that it should be a priority to find and implement a rehabilitation program that works. When we look at the recidivism statistics from prisons in United States that have adopted the dog-training prison programs, it is difficult to ignore the improvement that the inmates have.“It has been proved that recidivism rates go from 60% to 11% when inmates participate on any of these dog training prisons program” (Strimple 73). Some prisons programs plead to have zero recidivism such as “Project Pooch” and the Wisconsin Correctional Center, to name a couple.

In addition, inmates developed marketable skills and earned college credits. The most common type is a state vocationalcertificate, followed by a pet care technician certificate and veterinarian assistant. Other programs provide a certificate in dog behavior modification, and a certificate in dog handling. 33% former inmates are working with animals since being released (Strimple 74).

The cost of the program is kept low; the only expenses are the professional training, which could be found through non-profitorganizations, dog food and supplies. The normal expense to train a service dog it is around $10,000 to $12,000 in normal circumstances. The cost in prison will average $4,000 (Strimple 75). After the dogs graduate from this program, the community gains trained dogs to help people with special needs for a very low cost. One of this prison programs is called “Project Pooch”, their fee to adopt...