The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal - Essay Example

 ‘What Works’ emerged as a fusion of previous modalities and their attempt to rehabilitate the offender. However, unlike earlier models of criminology that embraced one methodology, the new focus of the 'what works' movement utilizes the ‘best’ of other treatment modalities based on years of statistics and data driven results. Societal views held that what was being used was not working. Methods in an attempt to rehabilitate the offender simply were too broad and general in nature. What worked for one person did not work for everyone. Although the focus of this movement is focused on benefiting society as a whole, it allows for the notion that all criminals are not beyond hope. Instead ‘what works’ attempts to meld various criminological modalities into one package which is then altered, emplacing certain areas and minimizing others; all in an attempt to differentiate which services are need by what client at any given moment. The emergence of the ‘what works’ movement’ in the 1990s was not a spontaneous phenomenon but owed its increasing popularity to systematic efforts of the past by researching and collecting evidence of the effectiveness of correctional rehabilitation programmes. It is also extremely important to take note of the fact that the socio-political context of any geographical location has much to do with the state and law policies that are formed there at any given point in time. ‘What Works’ is a reflection of the societal norms and culture of our times with emphasis on preserving and protecting society as a whole while still attempting to offer services to the criminal. This paper explores selective aspects of probation policy and practice in the UK, and elaborates on the development and nature of the contemporary ‘correctional scene’. Certain current trends in corrections policy will also be located within broader debates centering around features of the late-modern penal systems, highlighting the significance of the shift from a ‘penal welfares’ preoccupied with the rehabilitation of offenders to a ‘new penology’ preoccupied with the management of crime and risk. The last two decades have seen a shift in emphasis in criminal justice systems in the U.K. and U.S. a professional ideology of ‘nothing works’ to one of a ‘what works’ framework. The ‘what works’ movement owes its emergence to a widely felt conviction that popular punitive measures were not effective in deterring offenders from crime, that offenders were not individuals beyond redemption and that suitably designed rehabilitation and treatment programmes that drew from systematically verified criminological knowledge could meaningfully reduce recidivism. This approach can be understood as an application of three core principles. The Risk principle targets those who are at the most risk of re-offending and suggests that the most intensive intervention services should be directed at this category of offenders. The second principle, the Needs principle, seeks to address the causes and correlates of offenses, thus implying that any treatment aimed at curbing criminal offenses should take into account his underlying motives, also known as dynamic risk factors or criminogenic needs. The third principle of responsivity refers to programme delivery. This principle aims to match the content of services delivered to individual learning styles and characteristics of the offenders as well as their specific needs. In addition, there are several other principles that have been forwarded as well, including the necessity of delivering programmes with integrity as well as the inclusion of clinical decision making. (Howells, Kevin Day, Andrew, 2004) Let us now move on to look at the some of the major historical, ideological and socio-political factors that have played a key role in the emergence of the ‘what works’ movement. The most significant outcome of these changes, for us, today are the implications that such a transformation in the penal system has been a catalyst in changing the way we view and treat offenders. While earlier penology laid emphasis on individuals and prioritized ascertaining the nature of the responsibility of the accused and held the guilty accountable (Feeley and Simon, 1994, p.173) the ‘new penology’ focuses on groups, and is ‘concerned with techniques for identifying, classifying and managing groups assorted by levels of dangerousness’ (p.173). Crime in the earlier model is viewed as inevitable as it will always be with us and because the efficacy of individualised interventions are viewed with suspicion. The new penology seeks cost-effective methods aimed at regulating groups as part of a strategy of managing and minimizing offenses. The new model of offender rehabilitation can also be understood as arising from the political concerns of the modern state today. The concern of the state seems to be its investment in maintaining its hegemony in a scenario where the limitations in its ability to secure peace and prevent crimes are endangering the prospects of continuing political authority (Garland, 1996). Its response to this situation initially has been a hysterical denial through which the myth of the sovereign state was reasserted leading to an emergence of the criminology ‘of the alien other’. On the other hand, the contemporary trends in approaches to offenders is invested in a criminology of the self, where the offending individual is seen as an ‘opportunistic consumer’ or a situational man rather than as someone who is always a potential threat to the society. The shift in understanding criminal behavior is ideological: while the offender was viewed as an abnormal individual alien to the mainstream society, they were now looked at in a more humane light, from the perspective of one that understands them to be a part of, and with an effort to incorporate them into, the society. Instead of an effort to suppress crime and criminal behaviour, and use it to excite popular fear and hostility by demonizing the criminal, the welfarist- criminology approach works on the poor socialisation of the criminal as well as social and structural causes of crime. Rehabilitation and allied services thus provide to redeem a person from debilitating social circumstances. We also find entwined a strain of argument that differs from a humanistic, offender-centered one, when we emphasise the importance of rehabilitation as in the interest of the public. Thus, future victims are rescued from prospective damage, thus benefiting the society. From subject, the criminal is now an object. What one observes here is a persistence on the undesirability of the criminal. Though the new approach seeks to humanize the criminal, there lurks an investment in the mainstream, the non-marginal. Thus, the criminal will be integrated into what is presumed as desirable, silencing crucial platforms of protest that now are interpreted simply as crime .To illustrate, as McWilliams and Pease (1990) note, Archbishop William Temple in 1934 delineated the community’s three purposes in administering punishment, in order of priority: (i) the maintenance of its own life and order (ii) the interests of individual members generally (iii) the interest of the offending member himself [sic]. (Temple 1934, pp.22–3) Such a focus on the utilitarian aspect of rehabilitation ,McWilliams and Pease (1990) argue, becomes the State’s vengeance upon the criminal, instead of being a corrective exercise. They prescribe the restoration of rights-based rehabilitation as the desirable ideal of rehabilitation. Organisational changes of a political nature have also a key role to play in the explanation of the emergence of current trends in the approach towards crime and criminals. In Nellis’s (1999) terms, the shift ‘Towards ‘‘the Field of Corrections’’’ is an integral part of New Labour’s modernization agenda for the criminal justice system. In England and Wales, the closer structural alignment of the newly centralised National Probation Service with the Prison Service has been cemented by the appointment of Martin Narey, former Director-General of the Prison Service as ‘Commissioner for Correctional Services’ (Harding 2003). The Home Secretary accepted the Carter Report (Carter 2004) proposal to establish a new National Offender Management Service, incorporating prisons and probation (Blunkett 2004). Affirming the expressive and instrumental aspects of a new penology, as well as its correctionalism, the emphasis in the Carter proposal was on a centralized Endeavour that will result in a service to the public. By the late-1990s, although there was evidence of a hardening of the rhetoric around community penalties, the link between crime and social exclusion continued to be recognized, leading to what we see today as the increasing emphasis on correctional behaviour, rehabilitation, offender counseling, treatment, probation-related services.. Although the ‘what works’ modality sprung forth from a conglomerate of many years of trials and errors, it was premised on taking the best from these various forms of prison modality and mold them into a all encompassing system that serves the public well by placing its needs for safety and security first. Yet, it also retains the aspects of humanism and compassion for those who wish to find their way back into mainstream society. 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