Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks?

It seems that in many respects the traditional sentencing of offenders has simply failed. In response to this many people are beginning to suggest rehabilitation as opposed to incarceration and other standard sentences. But what exactly is rehabilitation? In a nutshell, it means to change an offender’s behavior in such a way that it adheres to societal norms – basically, make them normal. Rehabilitation can undoubtedly provide society a great service, if it in fact works as the definition suggests it should. Though the definition sounds simple enough, it is a highly complicated matter that involves attempting to completely change not only what a person does, but in most cases, who a person is. As such, it continues to be a highly controversial goal of the criminal justice system and rehabilitation policies always seem to be under the microscope. While some claim that certain rehabilitation practices do in fact make a difference in reducing recidivism and should be more commonly utilized, others argue that rehabilitation is simply a waste of time. There is merit to both and ultimately, it just comes down to a matter of what works and what doesn’t.  

One success story, if you will, is the use of drug courts. This type of rehabilitation is typically utilized in one of two fashions. The first is prior to prosecution in which the offender is either not prosecuted further or the charges are dismissed altogether. The second is after a guilty plea has been entered in which case sentencing will be waived, and in many cases the records expunged. Both approaches are reliant upon successful completion of the program however. Studies by the United States Accountability Office (2005), on the effectiveness of drug courts have shown that in-program recidivism reduces significantly and post-program recidivism also declines though there have been mixed results regarding drug courts’ abilities to reduce substance relapse. The inability of the programs to prevent relapse has been the cause of scrutiny, but they do help some and therefore make a difference. It is for this difference many fight for the increased use drug courts and programs like them because for every offender successfully rehabilitated, society has one less criminal in their midst.

Less optimistic views claim that efforts to rehabilitate offenders are simply useless. Some even go so far as to argue that rehabilitation is a ridiculous concept because you cannot turn offenders into something they never were (American Community Corrections Institute, 2010). A similar notion to the old dogs can’t learn new tricks saying. A cited example of this failure is the program aimed at juveniles, Scared Straight. Still in practice today and nationally televised, this attempt at rehabilitation uses deterrence as its underlying method of operation. At risk youth and juvenile offenders are taken to jails and prisons and shown what their future will look like if they continue down their destructive paths. The idea behind these programs is that a realistic glimpse of the future that awaits the troubled youth will help to “scare them straight”. While the programs have good intentions, the fact of the matter is recidivism rate in juveniles who participated in Scared Straight actually went up compared to those who received no intervention (Schembri, 2006). Clearly a failure, Scared Straight helps make the case against rehabilitation programs.

While rehabilitation is more widely accepted today as a viable goal of corrections, this was not always the case. Opinions have been changed over time as seen with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation who only added the “R” to their name on July 1, 2005 (GAO, 2005). Although many corrections departments now include rehabilitation in their mission statements, there is still a long way to go if it is to be a successful endeavor. While opponents are simply waiting for the rest of the world to see it can’t be done, those in favor are working hard to develop new, successful rehabilitation programs to offer offenders. It has taken a long time to get practices where they are today, and it will no doubt take even longer to discover if there are in fact methods of rehabilitation that will prove effective enough to be used around the world. I hope those for and against can both at least agree to allow efforts to continue as there is still so much left to discover about criminals and why they do what they do. Perhaps we have simply not yet found the solution to helping offenders change their ways, but then again, there is no saying we ever will.

References:

American Community Corrections Institute. (2010). Rehabilitation in the Criminal Justice System. Offender Rehabilitation. Retrieved from http://www.offender-rehabilitation.com/rehabilitation-in-the-criminal-justice-system/

Bureau of State Audits. (2005). California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: The Intermediate Sanction Programs Lacked Performance Benchmarks and Were Plagued With Implementation Problems. Retrieved from http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2005-111.pdf

GAO. (2005). Adult Drug Courts. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05219.pdf

Schembri, Anthony J. (2006, August 1). White Paper: Scared Straight Programs, Jail and Detention Tours. Retrieved from http://www.djj.state.fl.us/Research/Scared_Straight_Booklet_Version.pdf