NCJ Number
99334
Journal
UNAFEI Resource Material Series Issue: 26 Dated: (December 1984) Pages: 101-107
Date Published
1984
Length
7 pages
Annotation
The arguments first brought against the rehabilitative ideal in the 1970's in the United States constitute three types of criticisms and may be relevant to policy deliberations in other nations.
Abstract
The first criticism is that rehabilitation often represents a threat to basic human rights and political values. The assumption of the total malleability of human nature permits the State's intrusion into areas of human freedom, privacy, and autonomy regarded by liberal thinkers as outside the proper area of State action. The discretion given correctional personnel and the frequent hostility of supporters of the rehabilitative ideal to the adversary system are further ways in which the rehabilitative ideal has been criticized in relation to human rights and political values. A second major criticism is that rehabilitation has tended to become debased and to serve actual goals that do not relate to the reform of offenders. The vagueness of the idea of rehabilitation and its conflict with the interests of correctional staff are sources of this problem. Financial limitations also hamper efforts at rehabilitation. The third major criticism is that correctional officials do not know how to rehabilitate offenders and thus that no effective programs exist either inside or outside correctional institutions. Twenty-three reference notes are included.