Criminal Justice Rehabilitation Philosophy

Criminal Justice Rehabilitation Philosophy

There are many different types of rehabilitation techniques that have taken place since the origin in the 19th century. The ideas of rehabilitating through punishment were first demonstrated in the penitentiaries constructed during the Jacksonian era of the 19th century. The practice of reforming an inmate for his/her wrongdoing began by simply placing the individual in solitary confinement and making them think about what they did, why they did it and how not to do it again. Rehabilitation is defined as punishment intended to reform a convict so that he/she can lead a productive life free from crime (Smith) it can also be described as the process of helping a person to readapt to society or restore someone to a former position or rank (Campbell). During this time, criminals were basically responsible for rehabilitating themselves through a thought process as well as silence. It was thought to help with their transformation into a well-behaved individual by separating them from the things that caused them to initially commit the crime. It had become the means of justifying an individual for punishment. As time progressed, other procedures of rehabilitation were introduced in a way that would tailor specifically to the convict and not the crime. Reformatories attempted to rehabilitate convicts through vocational and educational training. Convicts were introduced into a system of classifications that allowed for their individualized treatment. They progressed through graded stages based on their conduct and performance in programs. They could even work toward early release. Reformatories, although developed around the concept of rehabilitation, continued to advocate physical punishment for nonconformity (Campbell). Failure to successfully rehabilitate inmates using physical punishments and labor lead to the medical model of intervention as a form of rehabilitation. New “scientific”