NCJ Number
138956
Journal
EuroCriminology Volume: 3 Dated: (1990) Pages: 221-232
Date Published
1990
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Barriers to rehablitation of criminal offenders are identified and analyzed.
Abstract
One of the assumptions behind imprisonment is that it provides the opportunity to rehabilitate the offender. Success is measured primarily by the offenders' rate of relapse into crime. Another standard is more precise and simultaneously more difficult to document empirically: offender adaptation to life in liberty without violating the norms of community life or experiencing conflict with moral rules. Available documentation shows penal institutions more often than normal environments lead to negative changes in the human psyche; disturbances in the sphere of awareness, feelings, and the decisionmaking process; and, consequently, frequently lead to disturbances in behavior. The current approach to implementing the rehabilitative function with respect to persons remanded into custody has the major shortcoming of omitting the diagnosis of the mechanisms that cause the personality and social dysfunctions of the offender. Another limitation is the erroneous assumption that an ex-convict who has no conflicts with the law after leaving prison is a fully rehabilitated individual.