Further Reading

Architectural Barriers Act of August 12, 1968 as Amendedthrough 1978. 36 CFR Part 1192.

Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1978. Public Law 100-259;102 Stat. 28.

Kraus, L. E., & Stoddard, S. (1989). Chartbook on disability inthe United States. Washington, DC: U.S. NationalInstitute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as Amended through 1978,Sections 502, 506, and 507.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Briefing Guide, Section 504Regulation Briefing Guide. (1979). Washington, DC:Department of HEW, Office for Civil Rights.

Tucker, B. P. (1988). Deaf prison inmates: Time to be heard.Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 22(1), 1–71.

Veneziano, L., Veneziano, C., & Tribolet, C. (1987). The spe-cial needs of prisons inmates with handicaps: An assess-ment. Journal of Offender Counseling, Services andRehabilitation, 12(1), 61–73.

Legal Case

Grove City College v. Bell 465 U.S. 555 (1984)

REHABILITATION THEORY

Rehabilitation has long been a contentious topicin the fields of both criminology and penology.The term “rehabilitation” itself simply means theprocess of helping a person to readapt to society orto restore someone to a former position or rank.However, this concept has taken on many differentmeanings over the years and waxed and waned inpopularity as a principle of sentencing or justifica-tion for punishment. The means used to achievereform in prisons have also varied over time, begin-ning with silence, isolation, labor, and punishment,then moving onto medically based interventionsincluding drugs and psychosurgery. More recently,educational, vocational, and psychologically basedprograms, as well as specialized services for spe-cific problems, have typically been put forward asmeans to reform prisoners during their sentence.

HISTORY

Ideas of rehabilitation through punishment werefirst embodied in the penitentiaries, built during the

Jacksonian era of the late 19th century. Reformershoped that felons would be “kept in solitude,reflecting penitently on their sins in order that theymight cleanse and transform themselves” (Irwin,1980, p. 2). Initially, under the Pennsylvaniasystem, it was believed that solitary confinement,accompanied by silent contemplation and Biblestudy, was a means to redemption. This approachwas later transformed in the Auburn system into oneof discipline and labor, also performed in silence.Through hard work and a strict disciplinary regime,prisoners were meant to meditate over why theychose a criminal path in order to amend their ways.Disciplinary infractions were met with corporalpunishments. At this time, prisoners were responsi-ble for their own rehabilitation, since the causes ofcrime were thought to result from individuals’inability to lead orderly and God-fearing lives.

In the latter part of the 19th century, the peniten-tiary gave way to the reformatory, which attemptedto rehabilitate offenders through educational andvocational training, in conjunction with quasi-military regimes. Reformatories introduced a sys-tem of classification of prisoners that allowed fortheir individualized treatment. Prisoners progressedthrough graded stages contingent on their conductand performance in programs. They could evenwork toward early release. Reformatories, althoughdeveloped around the concept of rehabilitation,continued to advocate physical punishment fornonconformity and later regressed to more punitiveregimens consistent with the reemergence of retri-bution at that time.

MEDICAL MODEL

The medical model of intervention as a form ofrehabilitation emerged at the turn of the century inresponse to the perceived ineffectiveness of earlymeans of reform that used labor and physicalpunishments to change people’s behavior. New“scientific” disciplines like psychiatry, psychol-ogy, and criminology proposed that the causes ofcrime and deviance could be linked to biological,physiological, or psychological defects of the indi-vidual. Criminals were viewed as products of

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socioeconomic or psychological forces beyondtheir control. In turn, crime was seen to be a “sick-ness,” and the object of corrections then was to“cure” the offender. The emergent Federal Bureauof Prisons in the 1930s endorsed the medicalmodel in its approach to rehabilitation, thus legit-imizing its use in corrections. It was during thattime that the classification of prisoners becamemore refined, and the medical model providedwhat was then considered a “state of the art” clin-ical orientation to the diagnosis and treatment ofoffenders (Welch, 1996, p. 75).

The medical model led to the introduction oftherapeutic personnel, such as psychiatrists, psy-chologists, and clinical social workers, into prisonsettings. While this model initially appeared tobe more humane than previous penal practices, thiswas not always the case. Instead, extraordinarilyinvasive and even illegal procedures took placein many correctional institutions, including psy-chosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy, and surgicaland chemical castration, all in the name of rehabil-itation. Other forms of treatment included various“talk” therapies such as psychotherapy and psycho-analysis. Given that the nature of many of theseinterventions was open-ended, prisoners could beimprisoned indefinitely if it was determined thatthey had not been “rehabilitated.”

The medical model ultimately fell out of favor dueto the convergence of a series of events. The inhu-mane nature of many of these practices, accompa-nied by an increasing concern with prisoners’ rightsand a dearth of evidence on the effectiveness of inter-ventions, led many experts to critique the rehabilita-tive ideal. At the same time, in response to anincrease in crime across the country, opponentsargued that the medical model was too soft and inef-fective. For many, the death knell of the rehabilitativeideal finally came about from the publication of anarticle by Robert Martinson in 1974. In what turnedout to be a politically important essay that had a swiftand discernible effect on policy, Martinson con-cluded that “with few and isolated exceptions, therehabilitative efforts that have been reported so farhave had no appreciable effect on recidivism” (1974,p. 25). As the title of his article suggested, heappeared to be arguing that “nothing works.”

Even though Martinson himself later retracted hisearlier conclusions regarding rehabilitation pro-grams, and his original essay was found to have seri-ous methodological flaws, the academic communityand both the political left and right embraced hismessage at that time. His message was attractive toliberals since it could be used to argue against the useof imprisonment and to abolish indeterminate sen-tencing. For conservatives, rehabilitation programswere thought to “coddle” criminals, since theyallowed for early release. For them, Martinson’sargument permitted the introduction of harsherregimes of punishment. Finally, an emerging socialscience also played a large role in vilifying rehabili-tation, since researchers found that prisoners who“participated in a wide range of rehabilitation pro-grams were rearrested at the same rate as those whodid not” (Irwin & Austin, 1997, p. 64).

POST-MARTINSON ERA

Penal policy in the United States, followingMartinson, no longer sought to rehabilitate prison-ers. Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Misretta v.U.S. in 1989, upheld federal sentencing guidelinesthat removed the goal of rehabilitation from seriousconsideration when sentencing offenders. Futuresentencing practices would only have to considerthe crime, with little concern for factors such asamenability to treatment or social and familialhistory. However, in spite of this political climate,some people continue to believe in the importanceand possibility of rehabilitation in incarcerationpolicy and practice. For example, the language ofthe mission statement of the Federal Bureau ofPrisons reflects a strong emphasis on societal pro-tection and safe and humane confinement, whilestill promoting “work and other self-improvementopportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens” (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2002).Although not couched in medical or rehabilitativeterminology, the federal prison system continues tooffer a variety of programs directed toward this end,including work, occupational and vocational train-ing, parenting classes, recreation and wellnessactivities, and substance abuse treatment.

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Current efforts in some states also indicate that thetide may be turning once again toward rehabilitationas renewed efforts are being seen through revampededucational and vocational training. This type of pro-gramming differs greatly from that seen in earlierperiods and is now much more closely linked to train-ing for specific types of employment, as evidenced byexisting programs in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Ohio,and Washington State. For example, the Oregon StateCorrectional Institution in Salem teaches advancedcomputer training, through which prisoners build cus-tomized computers for state agencies. A centralnotion behind this form of rehabilitation is that pris-oners will be equipped with skills upon release thatwill allow them to earn competitive salaries and avoidcriminal activity in the future. Officials declare thatthese efforts have had a positive impact on recidivism,as the percentage of admissions who were returningparolees in 2000 was 25%, down from 47% in 1995.Nonetheless, the critiques of such programs echo ear-lier ones, with some expressing concern that suchefforts are wasting money and that such training mayinfringe on the labor market.

Recent research has also indicated that somerehabilitative efforts do in fact have some effect onrecidivism. A series of meta-analyses of the out-comes of correctional rehabilitation programs onrecidivism has revealed that those that achieve thegreatest reductions use “cognitive behavioral treat-ments, target known predictors of crime for change,and intervene mainly with high-risk offenders”(Cullen & Gendreau, 2000, p. 110). However, itmust be noted that using recidivism as a means ofassessing the effectiveness of rehabilitative pro-grams may be somewhat misleading. Rates ofreoffending tell very little about the efficacy of reha-bilitation programs, per se, as they could well ignoreimprovements that may have occurred in otherareas, because much crime remains undetected, andbecause reoffending behavior may have little to dowith areas targeted by initial programming efforts.

INCENTIVES

Prisoners are, in essence, involuntary clients ofintervention efforts. They have not freely chosen to

participate in rehabilitation programs, and they areunlikely to do so without the benefit of incentives thatthe prison administration offers them in exchange forparticipation. These include such considerations asearly parole, better living conditions, and increasedinmate pay. While prisoners have the right to refuse toparticipate in intervention programs, the idea of earlyrelease is so appealing that many cooperate simply asa means to an end. For the prison administration, theimplicit coercion involved in this process is out-weighed by the fact that the prisoner attains a benefitin exchange for cooperation. However, this thinkingignores the fact that rehabilitation cannot take placeby force, and in the long run, “sham” cooperation willnot result in any lasting change.

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abolitionist literature notes that prisons at best donothing to reform offenders and at worst play acentral role in reproducing crime. From a radicalpoint of view, rehabilitation is seen as an attempt bythose in power to impose a repressive system ofsocial control over vulnerable individuals. Such acritical perspective rejects the positivistic view ofcrime that focuses on individuals while ignoringgreater social conditions of disadvantage. What ischallenged is the notion that the offending behaviorstems from a defect in the personality of the pris-oner, who is considered amenable to change orrehabilitation within the prison environment.

Correctional institutions strip inmates of all of theirfamiliar social and cultural supports around whichtheir personal identity had previously been centered.Any program of rehabilitation within prison must firstovercome these devastating processes. Some, likeDavid Rothman (1973), reject the possibility of reha-bilitation outright, due in part to the relative power-lessness of the prisoner to give or withhold consent tosuch efforts and because of the incongruous nature ofthe environment within which it is offered.

WOMEN AND MINORITIES

Historically, the special needs of women and minor-ity groups in prisons have been largely ignored. For

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women, rehabilitative programming, in the form ofeducational and vocational opportunities, has rarelytaken into account gender differences and in mostcases paralleled that of men’s programming. Whilewomen are offered similar educational opportunitiesas men, many of the vocational programs for womenprisoners offer training in areas such as cosmetologyand hairdressing, reflecting gender-role stereotypes.Given the relatively small numbers of women’sprisons, women are frequently sent far from theirhomes and families, which can increase the strain ofimprisonment. While each state is different in termsof population and services, the smaller numbers ofwomen prisoners result in fewer overall rehabilita-tive services being offered to them.

Generally, no specific rehabilitation programsare geared toward Hispanic (or Latino/a), AfricanAmerican, and American Indian prisoners. However,formal and informal support groups based on eth-nicity often develop, are largely composed of vol-unteers, and serve to provide a strong means ofsupport for prisoners who may feel culturally andspiritually isolated.

In Canada, the federal correctional service hasattempted to meet the needs of Native CanadianIndians or Aboriginal offenders, who are largelyoverrepresented in their federal institutions. As partof correctional programming, Aboriginal offendersare offered a variety of spiritual and healing initia-tives while incarcerated. For example, this includesaccess to spiritual Elders who offer ritual cere-monies such as smudging and sweat lodges insidethe institution. Nonetheless, critics of these effortsindicate that the prison administration offers themonly sporadically, makes little separation betweendistinct tribal customs, and does not accord themthe same respect as other religious practices.

CONCLUSION

The concept and practice of rehabilitation continuesto evolve and change in correctional institutions.While the state and the public have a vested interestin prisoners leaving prison as no more of a socialburden than when they went in, if rehabilitativeefforts are to have any real impact, they must takeinto account the lessons of the past. These include

considerations of individual needs, sensitivity torace, gender, and culture, and an awareness of themany limitations the prison environment imposes inoffering opportunities for change.

—Kathryn M. Campbell

See also Auburn System; Deterrence Theory; Incapaci-tation Theory; Just-Deserts Theory; Medical Model;Pennsylvania System; Prerelease Programs; PrisonerReentry; Psychological Services; Recidivism;Women’s Prisons

Further Reading

Butterfield, F. (2001). Inmate rehabilitation returns as prisongoal. New York Times Online, May 20. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nytimes.com

Cullen, F. T., & Gendreau, P. (2000). Assessing correctionalrehabilitation: Policy, practice and prospects. Policies,Processes and Decisions of the Criminal Justice System.Criminal Justice, 3, 109–175.

Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2004). Federal Bureau of Prisons:Mission and vision. Retrieved September 14, 2004, fromhttp://www.bop.gov

Gendreau, P., & Ross, R. (1987). Revivification of rehabilita-tion: Evidence from the 1980s. Justice Quarterly, 4(3),349–407.

Irwin, J. (1980). Prisons in turmoil. Boston: Little, Brown.Irwin, J., & Austin, J. (1997). It’s about time: America’s

imprisonment binge (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Martinson, R. (1974). What works? Questions and answers

about prison reform. Public Interest, 35, 22–54. Martinson, R. (1979). New findings, new views: A note of cau-

tion regarding sentencing reform. Hofstra Law Review,243–258.

McGuire, J., & Priestly, P. (1992). Some things do work:Psychological interventions with offenders and the effec-tiveness debate. In F. Losel, D. Bender, & T. Bleisner(Eds.), Psychology and law: International perspectives.Berlin: Walther de Gruyter.

Rothman, D. (1973). Decarcerating prisoners and patients.Civil Liberties Review, 1, 8–30.

Welch, M. (1996). Corrections: A critical approach.New York: McGraw-Hill.

Legal Case

Misretta v. U.S. No. 87-7028. (1989). 488 US 361.

RELIGION IN PRISON

Religious people and institutions have greatlyinfluenced the treatment of offenders in correctional

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