¶ … Punishment Compared With the Effectiveness of Rehabilitation
For most people within the criminal justice system, as well as society at large, rehabilitation and punishment are two choices which must be taken, rather than taking their synonymous meanings. They give the impression to be like possible synonyms or ways to refer to same processes. Is punishment rehabilitation? Or alternatively, is rehabilitation punishment (McNeill, forthcoming)?
The supporters of rehabilitation view offending etched in people's experience of injustice and social expulsion, to bank on an individual's (criminal) responsibility (the punishment is based on that) as ill-conceived and to emphasize the role of the state to rectify the mess of the total crime produced. Punishment for certain rehabilitationists seems like a fancy term use. Meanwhile, the critics argue that there could be vengeful, appropriate and fair terms to pile up (McNeill, forthcoming).
For many rehabilitation professionals, those who happen to be compassionate about the idea of dispensing punishment to convicted offenders; hold to a belief system that people can not only transform themselves but also their circumstances on their own. They can make new and better choices, overcome their adverse miseries, transform and change their situations and they do all this in order to champion a new future (McNeill, forthcoming).
For those who are deterministic about the genesis of criminal behavior and issues related, are inclined to believe in a better world, free will and power of the human mind (even when structural pressure and intense social pressure ensue) when issue of future prospects of rehabilitation arises. Most rehabilationists have a sound sense of justice and injustice, its apparent in their wish list that the state must pay its due diligence in honoring the individuals with 'criminogenic'...
It had been born with fuelling of progressive ideology and reform in consequent years. It grew stronger and stronger with social science developing rapidly in the 1930s and 1940s, reaching heights during the 1950s when medical model took on a new meaning. However, it suffered a setback during the 1960s and 1970s, and then totally forgotten in the 1980s (Logan and Gaes, 1993).
Entering the 1990s, rehabilitative ideal had been revived again as some researchers made use of latest research technological tool known as meta-analysis. These researchers thought that they had come across the Holy Grail. The questions put forth after a number of research studies on this subject had been whether the news of demise of rehabilitation false? Is it time to provide rehabilitation a nice burial and focus on redefining penology and neglect correctional references? (Logan and Gaes, 1993)
The debate on "punishment over treatment" is a long ensuing one done in empirical research and in ideology as well. A nice discussion should address both issues. Failure in not doing so has dispersed some important questions for instance (Which one is more appropriate: Punishment or rehabilitation?) passion for such questions normally is associated (for instance which is the correct goal for criminal justice: Rehabilitation or punishment?) this paper professes to review the recent empirical research done and claims for reliability of rehabilitation. The second aim is to argue the research's finding, punishment is better than rehabilitation for criminal justice, particularly punishment by confinement seems logical.
The results of several meta-analyses research studies, conducted on rehabilitation and punishment, did not prove…
