According to national surveys of confidence in the criminal justice system, corrections pales in comparison to law enforcement and the judiciary see Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The emphasis on offender reentry from prison is one example as to how the public looks at our activities. Although most of the rhetoric on reentry comes from national sources, the great majority of decisions regarding supervision and services for returning offenders will be made at the state and local levels.
The public will support this and other community corrections initiatives based solely on their ability to trust the local system assigned with implementation. The average citizen and reporter have never been exposed to national reentry advocates and their positions.
All fellow citizens know about corrections is what they read in the paper and view on local TV. But when the media carries endless stories of offenders committing violent crimes as the sole message, our ability to enter or affect the discussion is greatly diminished.
This article is not about reentry; rather, it addresses the more general question of whether corrections agencies can have a favorable impact on public attitudes and perceptions. To be fair, my former agency also encompassed law enforcement agencies, but the vast majority of publicity, good and bad, was associated with corrections. Correctional agencies can be part of the debate and greatly influence local and state media. The news media is very important to us.
Unless you have an advertising budget, everything will be filtered and distributed through them. Establishing favorable media relations can only be accomplished by taking their needs into serious consideration. We believe that you have to be honest and fair in order to get the same in return. We have access to our information system through home computers. We have laptops with wireless broadband capacity. We have the authorization, tools and knowledge to take care of media needs.
We market to the media as often as we market to the public. In a hyper-competitive media market, we know that our proactive efforts will not get all the exposure we want. But when a reporter writes about a parolee involved in a violent crime, we are hopeful that the reporter or editor also knows of the quality and comprehensiveness of our efforts to closely supervise and obtain services for our clients.
At the very least, they will know what we are trying to accomplish. We are also concerned about our national reputation.
We want recognition for developing and implementing best practices. But while national exposure is valued, our local media connections are the ones that will play the greatest role in defining our effectiveness. We believe in proactive efforts as the foundation of good public relations. Beyond pitching story ideas to reporters, we are systematic in our outreach efforts. These include:.
A quarterly television show that is played approximately times each year by metropolitan government and community access stations. A first-rate web and social media site. A fully functioning site can become the equivalent of a full time public relations staff position. Writing story-oriented articles for national criminal justice publications and using them to populate the web site. Those questions can best be answered through the powerful data mining and link analysis software tools offered by Austin, TX based Crime Tech Solutions in partnership with Sterling, VA based Visallo.
Effective link analysis complements big data analytics platforms, helping to expose previously undetected fraud, and the entities people or organizations committing it. Link Analysis — Transforming big data into smart data By definition, link analysis is a data analysis technique that examines relationships among people, places, and things. Because of this, it is widely used by financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies to uncover criminal networks, improve fraud investigations, detect insider fraud, and expose money laundering schemes.
Similarly, government agencies use link analysis to investigate fraud, enhance screening processes, uncover terrorist networks and investigate criminal activities. Our offerings include sophisticated link analysis software , an industry-leading investigation case management solution , and criminal intelligence database management systems.
Your email address will not be published. Previous Post What is Crime Analysis? We think that rehabilitation as therapy can also be attributed to some who take themselves to be critics of rehabilitation.
Footnote 38 This suggests that she endorses a therapeutic conception of rehabilitation and denies that her own favoured form of punishment is rehabilitative on the basis that it is non-therapeutic. Herbert Morris also seems to endorse rehabilitation as therapy in characterising his own view as non-rehabilitative. It is, however, tempting to think of Hampton and Morris not as opponents of rehabilitation, but as proponents of a particular, non-therapeutic, kind of rehabilitation, Footnote 40 namely:.
Rehabilitation as moral improvement. Footnote 42 As we have seen, she does not regard punishment of this sort as rehabilitative, suggesting that she would reject rehabilitation as moral improvement as an account of the nature of rehabilitation. Footnote 43 However, those who characterise Hampton as a proponent of rehabilitation may do so because they, in contrast to Hampton, endorse rehabilitation as moral improvement , or something close to it.
Others have endorsed rehabilitation as moral improvement too. Whether or not they take themselves to be defending a variant of rehabilitation, those who defend the moral improvement of offenders as a legitimate goal of criminal justice understand moral improvement in different ways, and we might recognise these differences by distinguishing a number of different variants of rehabilitation as moral improvement.
These variants share a commitment to a specific kind of end, that is, making the offender morally better, but differ in their understanding of what becoming morally better consists in the nature of moral improvement , and on what sorts of moral improvement rehabilitation may legitimately aim at the scope of legitimate moral improvement.
On the nature of moral improvement we can, for example, distinguish between views according to which moral improvement consists in the acquisition of more justified moral beliefs, more morally virtuous character traits, more praiseworthy moral motives, or more morally desirable actions.
Footnote 48 On the scope of legitimate moral improvement, we can distinguish between attempts to morally improve a person with respect to the particular type of conduct for which the individual has been convicted, or more globally. Footnote 49 There appears then to be much agreement on the nature of moral improvement, but there are also important differences between their accounts, in particular regarding the scope of legitimate moral improvement.
Morris favours a view on which rehabilitative measures may permissibly aim at a global kind of moral improvement.
Footnote 55 In this way, moral education imparts on offenders moral knowledge that will help them choose to do what is right.
Footnote 56 This suggests a narrower understanding of the legitimate scope of rehabilitation; rehabilitation should only or at least mainly target moral improvements relevant to the particular sort of criminal activity that has been committed.
Similarly, Duff defends what some see as a rehabilitation-based account of criminal justice aimed at moral improvement Footnote 57 on which it is not permissible for moral improvement to take a focus that is too global or wide-ranging.
As with the aims invoked by thin conceptions of rehabilitation, the aim of moral improvement may, on rehabilitation as moral improvement , be proximal to some further aim, such as the promotion of offender wellbeing, the social good, the non-instrumental value of being morally good or the non-instrumental value of becoming morally better , or some combination of these.
It may also be distal to some more immediate aim, such as the promotion of offender empathy, self-control, self-understanding, or introspection. Proponents of rehabilitation, as conceived in rehabilitation as moral improvement , typically assume some non-instrumental value to moral improvement. Rehabilitation as restoration. This could include social and vocational capacities as well as moral ones.
On this variant, criminal rehabilitation is in some respects akin to the payment of compensatory damages at tort law; its concern is to bring it about that the offender compensates his victim, pays off a moral debt owed to his victim, corrects the wrong committed, or restores the moral balance between offender and victim. A third, hybrid variant would understand rehabilitation as aiming at the restoration of both moral and social relationships.
Footnote 61 This seems to be the most commonly held variant of the view. Footnote 67 They explain that. Achieving such a change in attitude may entail the offender agreeing to undergo training, counselling or therapy and, as such, these may all be seen as part of reparative justice.
A forced apology or obligatory payment of compensation will not suffice; indeed, it may even be counterproductive in eliciting a genuine change of attitude in the offender. In the previous section, we distinguished five different conceptions of rehabilitation on the basis of their aims or ends.
In relation to the first two conceptions— rehabilitation as anti - recidivism and rehabilitation as harm - reduction —we introduced a condition restricting the means that could be used to achieve the intended aim. In respect of the latter three conceptions— rehabilitation as therapy, rehabilitation as moral improvement, and rehabilitation as restoration —we included no such condition.
This is because in respect of the first two conceptions, such a condition was needed to distinguish rehabilitation from incapacitation and deterrence.
In respect of the latter, we do not think a means-based condition is necessary to distinguish rehabilitation from other functions of criminal justice. Nevertheless, some proponents of these latter three conceptions may also wish to impose means-based constraints on what can qualify as rehabilitation—or permissible rehabilitation—and we can distinguish subvariants of these views by reference to the nature and stringency of these constraints.
We have already hinted at such subvariants of rehabilitation as moral improvement. Footnote 71 The change in dispositions in the offender ought to be the result of his autonomous reflection. Hampton, Morris, and Duff all hold that attempts at moral improvement should seek to bring it about that the offender among other things becomes convinced that his actions were wrong, feels guilty about his actions, and resolves not to perform similar actions again. Such transformations could potentially be produced through, for example, brain washing or conditioning, but these authors reject the use of such means.
Though they reject the label themselves, Hampton, Morris and Duff can—as we have seen—be characterised as proponents of rehabilitation on rehabilitation as moral improvement. However, a more fine-grained characterisation of their views would understand them as proponents of a subvariant of this conception, according to which moral improvement must be sought through rationality-engaging, and not rationality-bypassing, means.
The distinction between rationality-engaging and rationality-bypassing interventions might be relevant to other conceptions of rehabilitation too. Footnote 74 Shaw does not herself commit to any of the particular conceptions of rehabilitation that we delineate above. However, we could imagine that proponents of any of the conceptions that we have outlined might wish to invoke a reason-engagingness requirement that would render certain means incompatible with its conception of rehabilitation.
Moving beyond the criminal justice literature, such a requirement has also been advocated in relation to, for example, the treatment of depression, where it is has figured in arguments for preferring psychotherapy to anti-depressants. There are further distinctions that can be made between subvariants of the different conceptions of rehabilitation based on the means they take to be consistent with permissible rehabilitation. For example, one of the present authors Douglas has distinguished between perceptual and non-perceptual influences, that is, interventions whose primary motivational effects are mediated by perceptual processes, and interventions where this is not the case.
Footnote 78 Douglas rejects the moral significance of the distinction, but notes that some might argue that, whereas perceptual means to rehabilitation can be permissible, non-perceptual means cannot, because they operate bring about their intended motivational effects in a way that is non-transparent to the recipient, or is difficult for the recipient to monitor, or is irresistible. Footnote 80 As they understand it, this distinction is not co-extensive with either the distinction between rationality-engaging and rationality-bypassing interventions, or that between perceptual and non-perceptual interventions.
On the one hand, Bublitz and Merkel take perceptual mediation to be necessary, but perhaps not sufficient, for an intervention to qualify as indirect.
Among permissible interventions, Bublitz and Merkel mention conscious or direct communication and psychotherapy, while they take impermissible direct interventions to include the administration of psychoactive substances and deep brain stimulation. As with the distinction between rationality-engaging and rationality-bypassing interventions, requirements to engage perception or to employ indirect means may potentially be used to generate further means-based subvariants of each of the conceptions of rehabilitation we identified in Sect.
Delineating the five different ends-based conceptions of criminal rehabilitation identified by our taxonomy, and further means based subvariants, has, we think, at least two payoffs. One payoff is that the taxonomy helps to define the scope of some objections to rehabilitative theories of criminal justice.
Delineating different conceptions of rehabilitation makes it clear which conceptions are, and are not, susceptible to common criticisms of rehabilitation. Footnote 84 Our taxonomy suggests that this objection is more limited in its scope than proponents have seemed to assume.
If the objection is based on i , it seems to apply primarily to rehabilitation as therapy , on which rehabilitation presupposes a mental deficit. Insofar as a mental deficit implies a lack of mental capacity, this view arguably presupposes that the recipient of the rehabilitation is less than fully responsible though this will depend on which incapacities exactly are implied—the objection will have its fullest force in relation to what we called the forensic understanding of rehabilitation as therapy , since, on this understanding, rehabilitation targets precisely those mental capacities that are relevant to criminal responsibility.
Other conceptions of rehabilitation are not vulnerable to this objection, since they do not presuppose any mental incapacity or lack of rational agency. Perhaps rehabilitation as moral improvement and rehabilitation as anti - recidivism presuppose that the target of rehabilitation is flawed in some way. Footnote 85 However, there is no reason to suppose that the flaw must be a lack of capacity rather than, say, a lack of moral virtue or the presence of immoral motives.
She conceives of offenders as responsible moral agents who have acted immorally and to which punishment sends the moral message that they have acted immorally. Our taxonomy thus clearly shows that we can reject rehabilitation, as characterised by rehabilitation as therapy or certain subvariants thereof, for the reasons proponents of the theoretical objection give—that it fails to treat offenders as morally responsible agents—but deny that these concerns or criticisms apply to other conceptions of rehabilitation and perhaps thereby maintain that rehabilitation on these other conceptions is a legitimate function of criminal justice.
All of the conceptions of rehabilitation that we have introduced including rehabilitation as therapy are compatible with rehabilitation being pursued through rationality-engaging means, such as engaging an offender in rational dialogue. But, as we noted, such a constraint could also be included in other conceptions, including rehabilitation as therapy, giving defenders of rehabilitation a way of avoiding objections based on ii. A second payoff of our taxonomy is that it helps to draw links with other literatures by suggesting parallels between rehabilitation and other types of intervention.
For example, on rehabilitation as anti - recidivism and rehabilitation as harm - reduction , rehabilitation is somewhat similar to some public health interventions, such as behaviour change campaigns intended to protect public health for example, drink driving campaigns, vaccination promotion campaigns , suggesting that literature from public health might fruitfully inform discussions of rehabilitation. Parallels between criminal justice and public health have already received some attention, but these have focussed on quarantine, Footnote 89 which, since it operates via the imposition of external constraints, is more analogous to incapacitation than rehabilitation.
Other types of public health intervention, such as health promotion campaigns intended to encourage vaccination or social distancing, are more closely analogous to rehabilitation.
There are further possible links with other literatures that have not been explored, or which warrant further attention. On rehabilitation as therapy , for example, rehabilitation is in some respects similar to standard medical treatment, suggesting that literature from medical and psychiatric ethics—and especially on non-consensual psychiatric interventions—might be relevant to the discussion of rehabilitation. On rehabilitation as moral improvement, rehabilitation is relevantly similar to, for instance, the moral education of children, which standardly also aims at moral improvement.
Again, this is a topic on which there is also some existing ethical discussion. Footnote 90 Drawing these links may help to clarify the types of interventions that can permissibly be used to rehabilitate offenders, and constraints that ought to be placed on their use. For example, a consent requirement in relation to rehabilitative interventions is suggested by rehabilitation as therapy , given that consent is standardly required for medical therapies, but not by some other conceptions, such as rehabilitation as anti - recidivism.
Identifying connections to other literatures may also strengthen the case for rehabilitation. On any of our conceptions of rehabilitation there are, as we have suggested, practices analogous to rehabilitation outside the criminal justice context. These include, most obviously, health promotion interventions in public health, psychiatric treatments, and the moral education of children.
This puts some pressure on opponents of rehabilitation to either i say something about why rehabilitation is inappropriate in criminal justice while these other interventions are appropriate outside the criminal justice context, or ii hold that these other interventions are inappropriate too. In the case of the comparison to the moral education of children, opponents of rehabilitation views could perhaps quite easily identify morally relevant differences; many accept that we can treat children in ways in which it would not be permissible to treat adults, for example, because children are yet to develop some capacities or agency or will that warrants the kind of respect we afford adults who are full moral agents, or because children have a different profile of prudential values.
Footnote 91 But identifying morally relevant differences is more difficult when the comparison is to practices that do not involve children. Identifying links to other literatures may also help us make headway towards greater clarity in discussions of rehabilitation. To some extent, existing unclarity can be attributed to the fact that different conceptions of rehabilitation invoke notions, such as mental disorder and moral improvement, that are themselves open to multiple interpretations and frequently used imprecisely.
This source of unclarity remains even when different conceptions of rehabilitation are distinguished. However, our taxonomy also suggests that we may be able to mitigate some of this unclarity by drawing on conceptual work done in other areas.
For example, when defining mental deficit we might derive some benefit from work in psychiatry, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science; when clarifying the moral improvement conception, we might rely on work on moral education and moral bioenhancement. Once we have achieved greater clarity in regard of what these notions mean or have better defined them, we can proceed to examine the extent to which they are measurable and how.
The concept of rehabilitation is often deployed in academic discussions, policy documents and legal judgments without being precisely defined, and without its extension being intuitively clear.
In this article, we have sought to bring a measure of clarity by offering a simple taxonomy of rehabilitation.
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