What is Criminal Rehabilitation?

Abstract

It is often said that the institutions of criminal justice ought or—perhaps more often—ought not to rehabilitate criminal offenders. But the term ‘criminal rehabilitation’ is often used without being explicitly defined, and in ways that are consistent with widely divergent conceptions. In this paper, we present a taxonomy that distinguishes, and explains the relationships between, different conceptions of criminal rehabilitation. Our taxonomy distinguishes conceptions of criminal rehabilitation on the basis of (i) the aims or ends of the putatively rehabilitative measure, and (ii) the means that may be used to achieve the intended end. We also explore some of the implications of each conception, some of the payoffs of a taxonomy of the kind we offer, and some areas for future work.

Religion and Rehabilitation as Moral Reform: Conceptualization and Preliminary Evidence

“…In this paper, we conceptualize rehabilitation as moral reform—consistent with Forsberg and Douglas’ ( 2020 ) conception of rehabilitation as moral improvement—and suggest religion as a source of moral reform is well-positioned to have a wide-ranging rehabilitative impact on various domains of an offender’s life, including physical health and social relationships. We thus focus on three life domains: self-identity, existential belief, and character.…”

“…Consequently, rehabilitative measures aim to address the issue one way or the other. For example, McNeill’s ( 2012 ; 2014 ) “psychological or personal rehabilitation” and Forsberg and Douglas’ ( 2020 ) “rehabilitation as therapy” are concerned with fixing the problem (e.g., a mental illness or deficit) and having offenders develop new skills or abilities through job training or education. Our conception of rehabilitation as moral reform overlaps with their “moral rehabilitation” or “rehabilitation as moral improvement,” which is intended to morally improve offender who did not have “moral power” (Rawls, 2005 ).…”

“…A relevant question here is whether rehabilitation as moral reform is more applicable to offenders incarcerated for consensus than conflict crimes given that the former offenders violated moral codes largely accepted in society, whereas the latter committed an act whose immorality is questioned by many (including the offenders themselves), thereby seeing no need to morally improve themselves. Although this is an empirical question for future research, we expect our concept of rehabilitation as moral reform to benefit both types of offenders because it focuses on positive changes in self-identity, existential belief, and character rather than targeting moral improvements relevant to reducing the likelihood of repeating crime that has been committed (Duff, 2001 ; Hampton, 1984 ; Howard, 2017 ), unlike “rehabilitation as anti-recidivism” (Forsberg & Douglas, 2020 ). 9…”

“…More recently, Forsberg and Douglas ( 2020 ) developed an alternative taxonomy that distinguished five conceptions of rehabilitation based on the aims of rehabilitative measure and the means to achieve the intended end: rehabilitation as (1) anti-recidivism, (2) harm-reduction, (3) therapy, (4) moral improvement, and (5) restoration. The first two conceptions aim to reduce the likelihood of reoffending or engaging in conduct harmful to the well-being of others and an offender, using other means than reducing the offender’s capacity to reoffend or engage in such conduct (e.g., incapacitation), disincentivizing the offender’s reoffending or harmful conduct (e.g., deterrence), or incentivizing non-offending or less harmful conduct by the offender.…”

“…These effects, however, are not the indicators or measures of rehabilitation itself, so the concept needs to be explicitly defined and observed separately from its outcomes. In this paper, we conceptualize rehabilitation as moral reform or “moral improvement” (Forsberg & Douglas, 2020 ) and operationalize the concept in terms of self-identity, existential belief, and character.…”