Crime Control Strategies and Community Change--Reframing the Surveillance vs. Treatment Debate

• NCJ Number: 214768
• Journal: Federal Probation Volume: 70 Issue: 1 Dated: June 2006 Pages: 3-12
• Author(s): James M. Byrne; Faye S. Taxman
• Date Published: June 2006
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article offers a critical analysis of the arguments made in David Farabee’s recent monograph “Rethinking Rehabilitation,” which challenges the theory, research, and policy regarding offender treatment and rehabilitation.

Abstract

The authors’ main argument is that the control-based corrections model proposed by Farabee ignores the larger issues of community change and offers a vision of individual offender change that is not supported in the research literature. The authors contend that Farabee’s model of corrections, which privileges surveillance and control-based strategies, would place offenders and communities at risk and offers merely a quick fix that would only further exacerbate the problem for both offenders and communities. The main finding based on a review of the treatment research is that there is ample evidence for the effectiveness of both institution-based and community-based offender rehabilitation programs. Following a review of the links between theory, research, and policy identified by both Farabee and treatment advocates, the authors argue for corrections policies that integrate both individual and community change strategies. After similarly reviewing the surveillance versus treatment debate, the authors argue that the debate is irrelevant because it focuses on the individual offender and turns a blind eye to the community context of change and desistance from crime. A review of the relevant research on formal and informal control mechanisms indicates that individual-level change strategies are of limited value unless combined with community change strategies. Offender reentry initiatives are good models of the types of initiatives favored by the authors in that they target treating and managing both at-risk offenders and at-risk communities. While individual-level problems and treatment needs are privileged in reentry programs, it is essential that these programs also recognize and capitalize on the formal and informal social control mechanisms that influence individuals and impact the desistance process. Table, figure, endnotes, references