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Prison Reform

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There has been a long standing debate whether rehabilitation works over punishment and incarceration to decrease the rate of recidivism of past offenders and to successful re-integrate them in the society. In 1974, Robert Martinson an American sociologist observed no evidence that rehabilitation programs were reducing rates of recidivism, the tendency for past offenders to relapse into criminal behavior and re-commit offenses (Cullen, 2012). In his study “What Works? Questions and Answer About Prison Reform”, was highly influential that “nothing works” became a criminological doctrine in the correctional system. This presented to pursue the “get tough on criminals” ideology of the 1980s and early 1990s where many correctional practitioners …show more content…
Mark Lipsey as cited by Andrews and Bonta 2010, updated the literature and reviewed previous researches on rehabilitation treatment effectiveness. Using meta-analysis, he summarized that out of 443 studies, 64 percent found differences in recidivism that favored treatment. In the work of Francis Cullen and Paul Gendreau in 2001 replaced the “nothing works” ideology to “what works” movement. The basis of the argument is from the study of Gendreau and Robert Ross published between 1973 and 1978. They reviewed the literature and direct their study to programs that appeared to “work”. Out of 95 experimental studies they reported that 87 percent has positive outcomes. It was further stated on their study that the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs depends on the “type of offender”, the “dosage” and the “integrity” of the treatment. This was supported by Francis Cullen in 1982 that a more humane approach is effective to reduce recidivism rather than institutional incarceration. He re-emphasized in his 2012 study that rehabilitation ideals should be taken of importance for deterrence-oriented programs do not work to reduce recidivism. Nonetheless, as early as 1975, Ted Palmer and Stuart Adams have challenged Martinson’s observation. According to them, the success of treatment depends on particular features of the

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