A Critical Analysis of Rehabilitation in Contemporary Penal Policy - Essay Example

A Critical Analysis of Rehabilitation in Contemporary Penal Policy In many ways, trying to critically analyse the role of rehabilitation in contemporary British penal policy is a Sisyphean task. First one must define what “rehabilitation” really is. This definition varies as a function of who makes it – politicians, interest groups, prisoners’ rights groups, citizens, or other stakeholders. An even more basic question is the question of rights. Does a prisoner have the right to rehabilitative efforts at all? If so, what is the ex-offender’s responsibility to society, in response to this right? Because a thorough discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this paper, the interested reader should refer to Lewis (2005) for a comprehensive discussion of the philosophical issues related to rehabilitation. Once a working definition of “rehabilitation” is agreed upon, the task of the analysis becomes almost impossible, again, in trying to agree upon what “contemporary penal policy” really is. Over the course of this paper, these two issues will be addressed, though never completely resolved. A working definition of “rehabilitation” is needed in order to perform an analysis, though even a few definitions evidence how differently the word can be interpreted. The British Humanist Association, in discussing rehabilitation, comments whether we should “be reforming and educating criminals, so that they have something better to do with their lives and no longer want to commit crimes?” (Humanist Philosophers’ Group 2002). Lewis, (2005), after summarizing the many documents produced of late by the Home Office on the topic of crime, states, “These documents seem to give significant weight to the rehabilitation of offenders on the basis that such strategies will reduce reoffending.” (italics added). Clearly, while both have a goal of reducing the commission of crimes by former inmates, the Humanists appear to have a concern for the content of the strategies, not just the process. Lewis proposes his own definition of rehabilitation, “the process whereby offenders are afforded the opportunity to be full members of society, with the rights and responsibilities that this entails.” Interestingly, in the Home Office’s (2004) “Reducing Reoffending: National Action Plan,” it states “Reducing re-offending is one of the most critical objectives for modern cross-Government working.” It does not mention making ex-offenders full members of society, or making them more educated so they can make more of their lives. The Government’s focus appears to be one of rehabilitation-as-a-means-to-keep-recidivism-down, whereas interest groups and those without known political interests focus more on rehabilitation-as-as-means-to-help-the-offender-grow-and-develop. It should be noted that this debate is not new, and has actually been a point of contention in penal policy for almost two centuries. The origin of attempts to reform prisoners in Britain cannot be tied to one particular event, but it has been recorded as far back as 1699 with the efforts of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) (Fyfe 1992). The SPCK’s focus included distributing Bibles and promoting Christian knowledge. Records from the organization indicate, “the Bishop of London recommended to this Society to consider of some means for the better instructing and regulating the manners of the poor prisoners in the several prisons of this City” (Fyfe 1992). By 1835 and the passage of the Prisons Act, a decision (formal or informal) was made that British Prisons would follow the “Separate System” in place in America as opposed to the “Silent System.” While the Silent System had its flaws, notably the excessive use of whippings and the mandated silence among inmates, it did have strengths, “stressed congregate activities. Inmates slept in segregated cells but moved into workshops during the day…eating together in a common mess hall.” By contrast, the Separate System “each convict was locked in a separate cell and confined there for the duration of his sentence, working at useful trades in the privacy of his room and exercising by himself in an isolated courtyard” (Roberts 1973). The Silent System, while distinctly flawed, recognized the inmates’ need for human interaction – to be treated, to a certain extent, like a person, whereas the Separate system was effectively a warehouse system where prisoners were basically caged animals. This, then, leads to a more basic question…what is imprisonment for, and what exactly is contemporary penal policy? One straightforward approach to defining penal policy is to refer to the ”Statement of Purpose” of HM Prison Service. However, that reflects only one group’s interpretation. Politicians of all parties have their definitions, as do interest groups, academics, and the other many stakeholders. Those who stand to gain or lose power, make or lose money, receive public accolade or suffer public humiliation, or in some way have a vested interest in keeping (or changing) how “contemporary penal policy” is defined will all want their say in how it is defined. Vaughn (2004) stated the issue well, “Crime has become a wicked problem-its definition is fluid, and nor can it be easily resolved. Disagreements rage across and within governments, law enforcement officials and the public over the best means to diminish the problem.” Though penal policy may be difficult to define, one given aspect of the policy is imprisonment. Agreeing on the purpose of imprisonment is equally contentious. The British Humanist Association (2002) summarized well the four major purposes imprisonment/punishment may serve: 1) Retribution, “an eye for an eye,” simply intended to hurt the criminal as much as he has hurt his victim. 2) To protect society from the criminal by locking him away. 3) A deterrent, intended to put other people off crime, or to put the criminal off re- offending after his release. But, no deterrent, however harsh, works if criminals do not expect to be caught. 4) To rehabilitate the criminal. Should we be reforming and educating criminals, so that they have something better to do with their lives and no longer want to commit crimes? The Rt. Honorable Lord Woolf, Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales stated in his April 2004 Mishcon Lecture, “Do we need a new approach to penal policy?” his position on the need for comprehensive penal policy, “the best deterrence to the commission of crime is the knowledge that there is a serious prospect of your being arrested and convicted if you indulge in crime” (University College London, 2004). It is unlikely, based on this position, that he would advocate for the last responsibility of imprisonment, rehabilitation, as this would hardly be called a deterrent. Indeed, he concisely stated his view in his comment, “It is not possible to have a healthy society without a healthy criminal justice system“ (University College London 2004). If he were the voice of the ruling party and their position on the role of prison and imprisonment, that there would be little rehabilitative efforts would not be a surprise. HM Prison Service, reflecting an aspect of the will of those in power, but not completely, describes their “Statement of Purpose” to be, “Her Majesty’s Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those committed by the courts. Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release” (HM Prison Service 2004). While the Prison Service may state a duty to “help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release,” its published Vision, Objectives, or Principles do not address this issue. The issue is addressed in the “Decency” subsection, stating, “We believe that by treating people with decency, they will be more likely to go on to live useful and law abiding lives that will benefit them as individuals and society as a whole.” (HM Prison Service 2004). While treating people with decency is necessary for an inmate go on to live a better life, it is in no way sufficient. This being the Prison Service’s only effort to help inmates “go on to live useful and law abiding lives,” is a distinct statement of the role of rehabilitation in contemporary penal policy. It would be irresponsible in discussing issues of rehabilitation and reducing recidivism not to discuss the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). As stated by the Prison Service, “NOMS brings together the work of the Prison and Probation services as a new single service to oversee the end-to-end management of offenders…The new service is also responsible for designing interventions and services that are designed to reduce reoffending and reconviction and protect the public” (HM Prison Service 2004). With the goal as “reduce reoffending and reconviction” and not assisting the offenders in gaining skills necessary to live a better life, even if they do eventually reoffend, it is unlikely that the programs with target the most basic needs of many of the offenders (literacy, employment) and simply be mechanical projects designed to do “whatever is necessary” to reduce recidivism. Lewis (2005) summarizes the view on the horizon, “Rehabilitation looks set to remain a tool to be employed in the name of crime reduction.” As rehabilitation has been around for many years, why does it remain so controversial? Lin (2000) indicates three concerns that inhibit the implementation of traditional rehabilitation programs: 1) The fear that people who have demonstrated their contempt for society’s laws may continue to flout them, even after they are better prepared to survive as law-abiding citizens. Preparation cannot change the mind of someone committed to crime. 2) The adversarial environment of the prison. Prisoners are confined involuntarily, and prison staff are the ones keeping them there. The resulting bitterness, resentment, wariness, and contempt, would seem to preclude the trust and mutual respect necessary for effective teaching, supervising, or counseling. 3) The sense that programs have simply not worked in the past. The latter, of course, is a matter of data interpretation, but it is the prevalent view in society. It is certainly the opinion of Lord Woolf, who stated, “59% of prisoners are reconvicted within two years of being released. The Social Exclusion Unit came to the conclusion that reoffending by ex-prisoners costs society at least 11 billion pounds a year” (University College London 2004). The public interest group “Reform” (n.d.) noted, in a quote by Anne Owens, a senior system official: At every level of the prison system, overcrowding is having an effect on the ability of prisons to deliver rehabilitative programmes. In spite of additional resources, the movement of prisoners and the gap between the number of prisoners and the number of spaces available are making it very difficult to provide sufficient positive activity for enough prisoners. While the difficulty may lie in the overcrowding and the prisons may be spending more resources toward rehabilitation, it is the failures that the public generally see. This is not to say there have not been some rehabilitative successes. Greenall’s (2004) insightful article, “Life in a prison-based therapeutic community: one man’s perspective” describes the alternative prison arrangement, the Therapeutic Community, describing its history and philosophy. While the article is a single case study, the reflections of the ex-offender and Greenall’s interpretation of benefit to the offender community indicate that this arrangement has much potential for addressing the vast array of concerns facing offenders before they are ready to return to society. A privately supported program, The Rehabilitation of Addicted Persons Trust (RAPt), in 2005 states they are running nine full drug treatment programmes in nine British prisons. The program states that they commissioned independent research from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, however it is unclear if the published data is part of the commissioned work or a reflection of their numbers. However, they report that of their program graduates, over half were still clean, compared to only a fifth of those who had not participated in the RAPt program. Most impressively, only 16 percent of the RAPt graduates had been reconvicted. (RAPt 2005). While data may be available from some small-scale programs, hard data on the cost/benefit analysis of government rehabilitation programmes, beyond the measurement of recidivism rate, are hard to find. Though not necessarily articulate, the assessment of the crime problem made by the Conservative advocacy group Direct Democracy, summarizes the matter well, “The political discussion about crime is often a numbingly boring argument about statistics. Overall crime recorded by the police seems to have risen (so the Conservatives rely on this statistics) while crime reported by the public seems to have fallen (so Labour rely on that)” (Direct Democracy 2005). Sir Leon Radzinowicz, a pioneer in the field of criminology, presented the same point in his own words, “no meaningful advance in penal matters can be achieved in contemporary democratic societies so long as it remains a topic of party political controversy instead of a matter of national concern, cutting across the conventional political alignments” (Radzinowicz 1991). Lewis (2005), in his timely document that analyzes both contemporary British penal policy and the theoretical, historical, and philosophical issues related to rehabilitation in penal policy, provided both a realistic and optimistic assessment of rehabilitation in British contemporary penal policy, “Although the key determinants of the new penal policy will not create a rehabilitative system, the presence of rehabilitative rhetoric might (italics in original) provide opportunities for sound rehabilitative strategies to be developed and pursued by workers in the field. Only time and more evaluative studies will determine whether contemporary rehabilitative rhetoric becomes a reality.” References Direct Democracy 2005, ‘An Agenda for a New Model Party’, Available at: http://www.direct-democracy.co.uk/default.asp Fyfe, J. 1992, Books behind Bars: The Role of Books, Reading, and Libraries in British Prison Reform 1701-1911, Greenwood Press: Westport. Greenall, P.V. 2004, ‘Life in a prison-based therapeutic community: one man’s experience’, British Journal of Forensic Practice, February 2004. HM Prison Service 2004, Welcome to the Prison Service, Available at: http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk Home Office 2004, Reducing Reoffending: National Action Plan (Reference Document). Home Office: London. Lewis, S. 2005, Rehabilitation: Headline or footnote in the new penal policy? Probation Journal, vol. 52, pp. 119-135. Lin, A. C. 2000, Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison. Princeton University Press: Princeton. Reform n.d., Crime. Available at: http://www.reform.co.uk/website/crime/criminaljusticesystemperformance/prison.aspx Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust 2005, Available at: http://www.rapt.org.uk/faqs/php Roberts, A. 2005, A criminology and deviancy theory history timeline. Available at: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/crimtim.htm University College London 2004, Mishcon Lecture – Do we need a new approach to penal policy? 22 April 2004. Vaughn, B. 2004, The greening and governance of crime control. Criminal Justice. Vol. 4, pp. 5-28. Read More