In 1994, Kenyatta Leal was arrested for possessing a gun as an ex-felon [1]. He was sentenced to 25 years to life under California’s Three Strikes law, but the repeal of the law prompted a review of his case and his eventual release in 2013. Shortly after his release, Kenyatta secured a position with The Last Mile, an entrepreneurship program for inmates. Inspired by his work with the organization, he founded Code.7370, a program that teaches incarcerated individuals how to code through a platform that does not require an internet connection [2]. Now, Kenyatta helps Fortune 500 companies hire employees with criminal records in order to create more inclusive workplaces.

Not every story is this successful. Mark Ford, a Las Vegas teenager, murdered his neighbor when he was 15 years old [3]. Mark was sentenced to two life terms in prison, but two laws passed during the 20 years he was incarcerated led to his early release in February 2023; Mark was a juvenile when he committed the crime, and several new laws and court decisions across the country have essentially eliminated life without parole sentences for youthful offenders. Mark was granted parole, killed two people, shot a third person, and then killed himself over the span of five days [4]. Interestingly, during his parole hearing, parole commissioners classified Mark as “low risk” using a risk assessment tool that factored in his earning of a GED while in prison, his “positive institutional record”, and his participation in “programs specific to addressing behavior that led to incarceration”.

Both of these cases are exceptional, and any claims purporting that convicts are either guaranteed to recidivate or very likely to turn their lives around are plainly false. Though it would be intellectually satisfying to present just one of these stories and insist that it indicates the necessity of one criminal justice approach or another, post-conviction outcomes in the U.S. are incredibly complex, and it would be irresponsible to oversimplify their nuances in this way. Though the data we do have can predict recidivism with some accuracy, it is ultimately very difficult to ascertain the path that each individual person will follow upon being released without a framework that factors in the severity of the crime(s) the convict committed, their personality, and their mental health. This framework simply does not exist, though, and it is in this truth that one of the most significant barriers to reform in our criminal justice system lies.

The activist fervor sparked during the pandemic reignited a particularly intense debate around criminal justice, often emphasizing more mainstream issues such as police brutality and the disproportionate representation of certain groups in our prisons and jails. These ideas have been explored extensively by activists and scholars alike, but a more nuanced and perhaps niche debate that merits additional consideration pertains to the question of which approach our criminal justice system ought to adopt. For the purpose of clarity, this debate can be summarized as follows. Individuals in one camp are proponents of a dual approach in which social reforms geared toward preventing crime from occurring are coupled with rehabilitative programs to decrease the likelihood of recidivism. Those in the other camp support a more punishment-oriented criminal justice system that emphasizes victim rights and is skeptical of the extent to which convicts can change. There are certainly people who hold a combination of both views and are not as strictly loyal to one side as more committed advocates may be, but these perspectives are highlighted because it is precisely their over simplistic nature that makes them troublesome. Thus, these views shall comprise the subject of our discussion.

Explored in detail will be the belief held by many in the social reform camp that rehabilitation is a process that—if implemented—will fill the gaps in the criminal justice system and consistently produce positive outcomes for convicts, but does the personality of inmates play a role in whether rehabilitative efforts are successful? To what extent do such programs work for the most violent or repeat offenders compared to their nonviolent counterparts? How can we strike a balance between achieving justice for victims and avoiding overly harsh punishment or defendants? Such questions are unfortunately absent in most discussions about rehabilitation. This article will attempt to address them as part of a broad assessment of whether the criminal justice system in the U.S. should prioritize prevention or damage control, as well as whether or not these approaches are mutually exclusive. 

When one considers the empirically proven capacity of social programs to reduce crime and the necessity of a criminal justice apparatus to address the crime that inevitably does occur, it becomes apparent that the most effective system would incorporate both of these approaches. Our system ought to chiefly concern itself with addressing wrongdoing and temporarily incapacitating those who pose a threat, but must additionally aim to incorporate programs to reduce recidivism among the overwhelming majority of inmates who will not spend life in prison. The actual efficacy of rehabilitation as an alternative to imprisonment, however, is much less straightforward. The data suggests that rehabilitation does have the capacity to reduce recidivism in certain cases, but further research is necessary to corroborate its overall effectiveness, indicating the necessity of the aforementioned approaches as well as investment in improved, research-based rehabilitative programs in this country. 

The Reform Approach

There is ample evidence supporting the claim that poverty, child abuse, sexual abuse, and a plethora of other societal ills increase the likelihood that one will commit a crime. This idea, referred to as strain theory, suggests that mitigating these ills (or strains on society) through a proactive approach to crime could potentially eliminate the conditions that have historically been associated with increased criminal activity. As per a 2018 report assessing a sample of about 2.9 million incarcerated individuals, only 49 percent of men were employed three years prior to their incarceration [5]. The same report found that individuals incarcerated in their early 30s are much more likely to have been raised in a low-income, single-parent home. The gravity of this disparity is apparent when one considers that men raised by families in the lowest 10 percent of the income distribution are approximately 20 times more likely to be incarcerated in their early 30s than their wealthy counterparts [6]. These statistics indicate that a lack of employment opportunities and instability in one’s youth correlate with an increased proclivity to commit crime. 

We need not speculate as to whether there is a clear link between social programs and reduced crime, as several studies have demonstrated a notable relationship. When the federal government terminated the benefits of several beneficiaries of the Supplemental Security Income welfare program, these individuals received 20 percent more criminal charges over the next two decades than those whose benefits were not terminated [7]. Further, these individuals were most likely to be charged with “income-generating crimes,” such as theft and prostitution, substantiating the claim that people may resort to crime out of necessity. SSI benefits were clearly important in maintaining these individuals’ economic security, and the harsh consequences of their revocation demonstrate how a proactive, social reform approach can reduce crime.

The Punitive/Deterrent Approach

Despite the necessity of the approach described above, the reality is that crime will always be a problem to some degree, irrespective of the extent to which people’s needs are met. White-collar crime, for instance, is typically committed by individuals who fit a very particular demographic. These offenders are generally white males who are—compared to individuals who commit other types of crimes—more likely to be employed, educated, homeowners with no prior criminal history [8]. Judging by the demographic characteristics of the perpetrators, these crimes do not appear to be committed out of economic necessity and thus are unlikely to decrease in frequency if social programs are available. People commit crimes for a variety of reasons, and the fact of the matter is that rule-breaking will always exist to an extent, regardless of social conditions. Accordingly, there must be strong infrastructure in place to respond to the damage that is done and incapacitate (temporarily or for long periods, given the severity of the crime) those who pose an immediate threat to the community.

Besides this function, the criminal justice system serves a more subtle deterrent effect. Research shows that the chance of being caught by law enforcement is a much more effective deterrent than even harsh punishment [9]. Consequently, a well-staffed and organized law enforcement presence can play an exceptionally vital role in not only responding to but also preventing crime. Accordingly, deterrent measures ought to be encouraged in tandem with the social approach described above. 

Rehabilitation 

Determining the effectiveness of rehabilitative programs in the U.S. is no easy feat. Because these kinds of programs are sparse, there is a limited amount of data as to whether they work and for whom they work. The prioritization of punishment in our current system and opposition to alternative approaches can be attributed, among others, to Robert Martinson, a sociologist who published a report in 1974 asserting that “nothing works” with respect to rehabilitation [10]. Accordingly, very little is known about the effects that different sentence lengths and convict personalities have on an individual’s likelihood of recidivism. 

Despite this scarcity, some of the most comprehensive evidence in this arena points to the fact that pursuing educational opportunities while incarcerated does reduce recidivism. A meta-analysis of several studies conducted by the RAND Corporation found that, on average, inmates who participated in correctional education programs were 43 percent less likely to recidivate than inmates who did not [11]. 

Though this observation seems promising, the relationship purported by the data ought to be taken with a grain of salt. The RAND study does not specify whether or not inmates who decided to obtain their GED had some particular commonality that operated as a confounding variable in the study, such as personality traits or the severity of the crime they committed. It would be helpful if the study clarified whether violent offenders were as likely as their non-violent counterparts to decide to obtain their GED, for example, or if this trend was noticed merely among individuals who already had some sort of proclivity toward obtaining an education—but this information is unavailable. Thus, though the study indicates that education does have the capacity to mitigate recidivism in a general sense, whether this trend applies to all offenders is unclear. Assuming it would produce positive outcomes for all prisoners without further research would be a risky undertaking.

There are several studies similar to RAND’s that demonstrate the capacity of therapeutic treatments, vocational programs, and mentorship to reduce recidivism, but again, the overwhelming majority fail to provide clarification as to whether the inmates who reap the most benefits of these programs shared some underlying characteristic that may have influenced the success they experienced. This dearth of information hinders progress, as it prevents policymakers from having the informed, research based conversations that are necessary for incorporating rehabilitation into our system to a greater extent.

Though the available research on the efficacy of rehabilitation ought to take precedence in these conversations, several moral and practical considerations additionally arise when assessing whether and (perhaps more relevantly) how we ought to expand rehabilitative programs in the U.S. The chief issue is that there are people who, despite adhering to the requirements of the programs in which they participate and demonstrating some degree of growth, will re-offend; the aforementioned Ford case illustrates this phenomenon. 

The bottom line is not that we should entirely refrain from giving inmates second chances because of the likelihood of recidivism, but that the system is not immune to error. What is the best way to prove that someone has changed sufficiently such that an earlier release or parole is warranted? Should the responsibility be placed on the commissioners who permit the release of an inmate who then reoffends? To what extent should we prioritize safety over potential rehabilitation? These questions are highly complex and beyond the scope of this argument, but the point is to demonstrate that while rehabilitative programs are certainly phenomenal avenues for societal change in theory, several practical and even dispiriting considerations must be included in the discussions that surround these kinds of programs. 

But perhaps the most fundamental reason why we cannot rely on rehabilitation as a cure to the issues in our criminal justice system is an ethical one. Thousands of people in the U.S. are victimized by some sort of crime on a daily basis, with the greatest burden falling on low-income communities of color. Social programs and effective rehabilitative infrastructure will take time to be implemented, and given the highly polarized nature of American politics, it may take years to achieve the kind of sweeping change required to dramatically reduce crime and recidivism. In the meantime, unsubstantiated claims cannot guide our actions, and it would be plainly wrong to ask the individuals who are most affected by crime today to wait several years for the change of tomorrow. Given this reality, a system that combines crime prevention with a punitive structure is not only necessary and supported by the data but truly just.