Rehabilitation Model

The belief that punishment can and should be used to bring about change in individuals is ingrained deeply in our culture. Most of us can relate to this idea personally. You may have been told as a child, for instance, that you were being punished “for your own good.” The implication of this statement is that punishment can change you for the better and improve your welfare.

The formal use of punishment by society to sanction crime also has been tied to offender change. At least since the opening of the first penitentiaries in the 1820s, Americans have envisioned punishment as a means to shape the future behavior of criminal offenders and prevent the commission of further crimes. More specifically, the rehabilitation model posits that sanctions should be used to change what caused the offender to commit crime in the first place. This change is the result of a planned intervention (e.g., participation in a drug treatment program) and the process may involve changing an individual (e.g., altering his or her attitudes and behaviors), or modifying the offender's life circumstances and social opportunities (e.g., helping him or her find a job). The rehabilitative model does not, however, attempt to alter offenders through fear, public humiliation, pain and discomfort, or physical restraint (although admittedly these things may be unintended consequences of the rehabilitative process).

Rehabilitation is a utilitarian justification for the use of punishment, because it seeks to use punishment as a means to the end of controlling lawlessness. In this regard, rehabilitation is similar to deterrence and incapacitation, which also posit that punishment can be used to control crime. The deterrence model, however, holds that punishments can be used to harm offenders and show them that crime does not pay. The incapacitation model seeks simply to restrain criminals—in prisons or through other means—and prevent crime by ensuring that offenders are physically unable to victimize the public. Rehabilitation and other utilitarian models of punishment may be contrasted with retributive justifications for punishing individuals, which seek to sanction people who have committed crimes because they deserve it. Retribution attempts to balance the scales of justice but does not claim that punishment can or should be used to prevent crime or protect society.

Rehabilitation takes many forms and draws on numerous ideas, theories, and practices. In addition, this philosophy of punishment suggests that individuals should be treated differently from one another based on the specific needs and circumstances that contributed to their criminality. For these reasons, the rehabilitative model is complex, and it has gone through many manifestations over time as views about the nature of crime have changed.