In criminal justice system, there are heated debates about advantages and disadvantages of punishment and rehabilitation. Crime control policy in the 1990s stands in sharp contrast to that of the 1960s-1990s. Growing fear on the part of the public, the unsuccessfulness of the liberal programs of the previous two decades, and the conservative swing in political mood have produced a dramatic departure from a policy of improving the justice system and rehabilitating convicted offenders to concern about violent crime and attitudes that favor punitive policies. Federal, state, and local governments have reacted to public sentiment by passing legislation that provides for longer sentences for violent criminals, and legislative, executive, and judicial bodies are streamlining due-process rights to protect the innocent rather than the guilty. The aim of the paper is to evaluate and analyze benefits and drawbacks of punishment and rehabilitation using statistical data analysis, personal interviews and observations.
Traditionally, punishment and imprisonment have been the same forms of control and social order maintenance. Many people including police, law enforcement officers, judges, advocate that greater punishments be applied to a larger number of people. It seems paradoxical that one of the most democratic nations continues to have one of the greatest crime problems. According to Burke (2005) punishment as the desired means of crime reduction has not worked in the past, and it is not working today. The lower crime rate in other countries must be attributable to something other than the effect of formal sanctions. Instead of trying to figure out what that might be, we rely on punishment. The United States is the most punitive nation in the modern Western world. More people are incarcerated in the United States than in any other modern nation. In 1990 more than 300,000 people were held in this nation’s prisons. Of greater significance is the proportion of the population this number represents. In the United States, 200 out of every 100,000 citizens are imprisoned, a rate that outranks that of all other nations. Poland comes closest to the United States with a rate of 190, and Australia incarcerates 128 of every 100,000 people. If what exists is not working, people want to increase it–incarcerate more people for longer periods. Prison space to incarcerate one person costs an average of $75,000 (Crow, 2001). This means that if a state wants to lock up a mere 100 additional inmates, $7.5 million will be needed. The need for space far exceeds our fiscal ability to provide it. To incarcerate one person for one year costs about $20,000, which is more than a year’s education at Harvard. Does it make sense to spend $75,000 creating a new prison cell and $20,000 a year for three years to incarcerate a burglar who stole a $500 television, a $500 silver service, and $1,000 in jewelry? Even if a cell is not needed, that is a $60,000 expenditure to show someone it is wrong to steal $2,000 worth of personal property. You would expect a nation that prides itself on cultural and technological advancements to be more creative (Crow, 2001).
In order to reduce the burden placed on criminal justice system and reduce number of prison populations, rehabilitation is used. Preventive detention has been debated for many years. Its proponents argue that it would prevent crime by incapacitating those likely to reoffend. Its opponents claim that it is fundamentally unfair because it allows a judge to make a decision about a person’s future behavior. Since no one can accurately predict behavior, particularly criminality, the chances of mistakes are high. It is also considered to be a dangerous step toward punishment without trial (Maguire et al 2007). Since most of the nation’s jails are already overcrowded and in disrepair, it is pragmatically an unworkable solution. Another component of the current punitive trend is tougher sentencing laws, particularly for serious crime and repeat offenders. Within the past few years at least three dozen states have enacted stricter sentences. Most of the remaining states introduced but have not yet passed similar legislation (Maguire et al 2007).
During the heyday of rehabilitation, the form of sentencing most often used was the indeterminate sentence. Legislatures set wide ranges for sentencing, and judges meted out minimums and maximums that also had a wide range. This allowed correctional personnel the discretion of releasing offenders when they were reformed. Maruna and Ward (2006) underline that no one, other than correctional authorities, paticularly cared for this system. Inmates did not like it because their release depended on the whims of the parole board and because offenders never knew exactly when they would be released. Judges and the public did not like it because the term served never resembled the actual sentence given and was almost always shorter. Recent legislation in many states replaced the indeterminate sentence with more determinate forms of sentencing (Burke, 2005). Discretion has been taken away from correctional personnel and assumed by legislators and judges. New laws specifying set lengths of sentences for particular offenses allow modifications of the time served based on the specific circumstances associated with a given incident. Judges then sentence according to the prescribed scheme and set a specific time for a person to remain incarcerated, which correctional officials can do little to modify. This change lengthened sentences, particularly for serious and repeat offenders. In many states, third-time convicted felons automatically receive a life sentence, and second-time felons receive automatic prison sentences with no chance for probation (Newburn, 2007).
During the evaluation and analysis of the problem of punishment vs rehabilitation, it was found that the current literature supports rehabilitation procedures while police officers and law enforcement officers prove effectiveness of traditional punishment and control. One of the interviewees, Mr. Hallagan, Prosecutor Attorney, admits that what is striking about these trends is the relentless dedication to a belief that something more, or new, can be done about the crime problem. During the past two decades, even though the focus may have been different, the intent was the same–to make the system work. Working for 30 years, Mr. Hallagan admits that in the 1980s, both institutional change and individual change were the primary stated objectives of crime control policy. Today control of the violent offender occupies the attention of criminal-justice policymakers. According to another interviewee, Mr. McCormic, a police officer, states that punishment is the only method that will work. So strong are his beliefs in the viability of punishment that he suggests we may be forced to give up justice to preserve social order. He admits “The preservation of society and of the social order demand that citizens subordinate clarity, and sometimes even justice, to punish most severely what most endangers society and the social order, even when there is little guilt or none.” This last thought appears to guide much of the movement toward reduction of procedural safeguards today. To many, the defendant’s rights have long been placed above society’s safety, and it is time to reserve this practice and protect the rights of the innocent. Throughout his long career in law enforcement, J. Edgar Smith claimed that a tough and punitive approach was the only workable solution to crime. He states: “I think more and more people are beginning to realize that quick apprehension, quick trial and substantial punishment commensurate with the crime is the basic method of dealing with criminality”. For this reason, stringent conditions for bail, allowing judges to consider the seriousness of the offense and the probability that the criminal will reoffend if released, a practice known as preventive detention, has been proposed and supported by several respected authorities.
Restriction of the opportunity for probation and parole often accompanies new sentencing legislation. Many states made it more difficult to be placed on probation for certain offenses and impossible for certain serious ones. Parole, which is the conditional early release from prison under supervision in the community, has also been restricted in many states. In theory, a return to determinacy and the abandonment of rehabilitation eliminates the need for parole, which was designed to help the offender prepare to reenter the community (Newburn, 2007). Yet parole serves another important function of controlling inmates in prison and is one of the few rewards that can be manipulated. For this reason, most states have retained it. Still, the administration of parole has been modified so that the parole date is determined by the sentence rather than by the paroling authority. Good time receiving extra credit for time served while maintaining good behavior in prison is another major form of reward used in prison to control inmates. Because it reduces the total amount of time an individual will serve and modifies the original sentence, several states have considered eliminating it. However, heavy lobbying against the legislation by correctional personnel has prevented its elimination (Russel, 2006).
Critics (Crow, 2001) admit that there are two reasons for the direction of current punitive trends. First, it is a reaction to the perceived failure of liberal ideas tried during the 1960s and 1970s. Programs providing opportunities for the disadvantaged and programs for rehabilitating criminals did not reduce crime, so penal philosophy followed the general swing back toward conservatism (Crow, 2001). Second, it is a reaffirmation of three goals of criminal sanction: deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution. The fourth recognized goal is reform, from which the system is moving away. Deterrence, simply, is the use of punishment to prevent illegal behavior and may be directed toward two different populations. Offenders are punished to prevent them from repeating their crimes in the future; this is known as specific deterrence, a practice that embodies the principle most American families use in disciplining (Russel, 2006). This is repeated whenever the behavior occurs until the punishment is associated with the act. To avoid the punishment, the child learns to refrain from the act. Punishing criminals has the same purpose. We want the individual to associate the punishment and its related pain and unpleasantness with commission of the illegal act so that in the future, to avoid the punishment, the individual will refrain from repeating the crime (Crow, 2001). Besides the benefits of specific deterrence, secondary effects known as general deterrence accrue. Punishment serves as a warning of what will happen to anyone who commits an illegal act. In this way, the criminal sanction should have a restraining effect on the entire population, and even though most do not directly experience its unpleasantness, they come to associate it with illegal behavior.
A field trip to one of the Ohio’s jails shows that many of the offenders are too young, too immature, or living in environments that support criminality, where the threat of punishment has little meaning in the context of their lives. And the criminal justice system can do nothing to establish a rational interpretation because such methods do not exist. Theft would be more profitable, and you now know that the chances of getting caught are almost nonexistent. In jail, many of the offenders are waiting for the trial. Some of them serve a sentence less than one year because of small offences. In general, jail functions as a remand prison for the categories of offenders mentioned above. The jail has different wings for different types of offenders and special rehabilitation programs for good behavior. During the visit to one of the Ohio’s jail, I found that many young offenders are imprisoned with older inmates. Predatory career criminals do commit crime after crime, piling up hundreds if not thousands of offenses, but such individuals are obscured by the flood of people who do not make crime their vocation but transgress at some point in their lives. In this case, rehabilitation services would better serve for young offenders and help the society to prevent them from communication and interaction with older criminals and recidivists. the visit to jail proves my position that the idea behind the strategy is to identify and incarcerate individuals likely to continue committing crimes. As noted above, its success depends on the assumption that a small percentage of offenders commit a large proportion of all serious crimes, yet this bears little resemblance to reality when the total crime picture is considered.
Along with deterrence, incapacitation is considered to be an important aspect of the current reform efforts. Rehabilitation had as its objective the return of offenders to the community as cured and viable members of society. Te rehabilitation efforts of the 1980s and 1990s were to a large extent unsuccessful. No program appeared to be any more effective in changing criminals than any other program, so a sizable portion of the people released from prison continue to return (Russel, 2006). This has led many to conclude that the best and possibly only alternative is simply to remove offenders from the community, precluding any further vexation and exploitation by them. Since criminals are thought to be more likely to commit crimes than those never convicted of a criminal act, it follows that some benefits will be derived from incarcerating convicted criminals. Incapacitation has the greatest potential as a method of crime control if it is a few hardened criminals who commit most crimes. If they can be identified, convicted, and incarcerated for long periods, a significant reduction in crime would be realized. Most advocates of punitive reform have this perspective on the criminal population. Blame for the majority of crimes committed is placed on a relatively few compulsive, predatory individuals thought to commit hundreds if not thousands of crimes each year (Crow, 2001). The final goal behind the punitive reform movement is the reestablishment of retribution. Of all penal goals, retribution is the most moralistic (Maruna and Ward 2006). It contains an element of revenge because the victim deserves to be repaid with pain for the harm suffered. Justice is achieved when the punishment given the offender is equivalent to the harm accruing from the criminal act. Consequently, a social balance or equity is reestablished and maintained within society (Maruna and Ward 2006). People can see that productive contributions to society are re- warded and that noncompliance with generally accepted rules and the victimization of others is punished (Leahy 2001). There appears to be little hope for effectively meeting the first requisite of deterrence–certainty. The police are limited in what they can do. Their primary method of promoting deterrence is to provide patrols intended to pose a threat of detection to potential offenders and allow officers to respond quickly to calls of crimes in progress. It would seem that adding additional patrols might enhance the deterrent capability, but research has not supported this presumption (Murphy, 1994).
Courts face similar problems in improving the certainty of punishment. Considerable public funds have been expended to improve court efficiency, trying to alleviate delays and bring about swifter justice. Speed of sanction is an important factor in specific deterrence, but if so few offenders are caught and sanctioned, improved swiftness will have little effect on the crime rate (Russel, 2006). Besides, a method to maintain swiftness has developed naturally, without large federal grants–plea-bargaining. Because 19 out of 20 people convicted plead guilty, courts are able to convict and sanction most offenders quickly and preclude further delays associated with appeals, since there are few grounds on which to contest a guilty plea. Another possible improvement in judicial processing would be the establishment of support programs to encourage and aid victims and witnesses in pressing charges and bringing cases to trial. But, this would not greatly affect the low probability of getting caught, and the overall effect would not be substantial (Maruna and Ward 2006).
Even if the police and the courts can do nothing to enhance the deterrent effect, one might ask whether punishments might be changed in some way. If punishments were more severe, offenders might think twice about committing crimes. More important, others might reevaluate the benefits to be derived against the more extreme costs (Russel, 2006). There are several problems with this idea. Researchers have found that the certainty of sanction is more important in establishing the deterrent effect than the severity of the sanction. In fact, a direct link between severity and lower crime rates has never been empirically established. Some evidence suggests that at the low end of the scale increasing punishments (such as doubling the fine for speeding) may be effective, but that increasing maximum sentences from 20 years to 30 years appears to have little effect. Problems with the second requisite for deterrence the ability to recognize and evaluate the potential losses and benefits faced when one commits a given offense are also apparent (Maruna and Ward 2006).
In sum, the criminal-justice system’s attempts to reduce crime through rehabilitation and to satisfy the public’s need for retribution fail for much the same reason that deterrence and incapacitation do not work: the proportion of the criminal population touched by the system at any point is too small to have a major impact. During the 1990s, rehabilitation was held to be the answer to the crime problem. Officials claimed that by reforming convicted felons crime could be reduced. Yet as we learned with incapacitation, the prison system holds a very small percentage of the criminal population. Even if every incarcerated criminal was reformed, the system would fail to influence those who are never caught, those who are just deciding to experiment with criminality, and those who occasionally commit illegal acts. Rehabilitation, as an overall strategy, was thus doomed to fail from the start; too few criminals are brought into the system to be reformed. Retribution, the reestablishment of social balance and a sense of justice and fair play within the public, also fails to reduce crime because the system catches and punishes so few. Predatory crimes occur every day, but in few cases are people arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. This situation defies the sense of what is fair–hardworking citizens are denied the benefits of their labors. The public has reacted by calling for stiffer punishments, but intensifying punishments will not enhance the sense of retribution because so few are punished. The vast majority of victims will not see their assailants brought to justice. The justice system fulfills an important symbolic function by establishing standards of conduct. It formally defines right and wrong for citizens and frees them from the responsibility of taking vengeance, thus preventing the escalation of feuds within communities. The system protects the rights of free citizens by honoring the principle that individual freedom should not be denied without good reason.
References
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Crow, J. (2001). The Treatment and Rehabilitation of Offenders. Sage Publications Ltd.
A Field Trip to Ohio County Jail. Trip. 2008.
Hallagan, A. Prosecutor Attorney. The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. Personal Interview. 2008.
Leahy, E. Crime and Punishment Rehabilitation or Retribution. 2001. Web.
Maguire, M., Morgan, R., Reiner, R. (2007). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford University Press; 4Rev Ed edition.
Maruna, Sh., Ward, T. (2006). Rehabilitation (Key Ideas in Criminology). Routledge; New Ed edition.
McCormic, B. A Police Officer. Akron Police Department. Personal Interview. 2008.
Murphy, J. G. (1994). Punishment and Rehabilitation. Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Newburn, T. (2007). Criminology. Willan Publishing.
Russel, C. (2006). Alternatives to Prison: Rehabilitation and Other Programs (Incarceration Issues: Punishment, Reform, and Rehabilitation). Mason Crest Publishers; Library Binding edition.
Smith. J Edgar. A Law Enforcement Officer. Akron Police Department. Personal Interview. 2008.