Nothing Works Revisited: Deconstructing Farabee's Rethinking Rehabilitation

• NCJ Number: 232520
• Journal: Victims & Offenders Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2009 Pages: 101-123
• Author(s): Francis T. Cullen; Paula Smith; Christopher T. Lowenkamp; Edward J. Latessa
• Date Published: April 2009
• Length: 23 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines a current hypothesis that claims that offender treatment does not work.

Abstract

In Rethinking Rehabilitation, Farabee claims that offender treatment is a failed enterprise and instead proposes a correctional approach that emphasizes deterrence through intensive supervision, electronic monitoring, and indeterminate parole sentences. The authors argue that this neo-Martinson attack on rehabilitation, which has the potential to shape public policy discourse, needs to be deconstructed. Although Farabee's critique has meritsespecially about the limited effectiveness of many current prison programshis analysis ignores research both favorable to offender treatment and unfavorable to his proposed policy agenda. In this context, his advice to choose a correctional future that is punitive and devoid of rehabilitation would be a mistake. (Published Abstract)