Reducing Crime

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Two thirds of all felons released fromstate prisons are rearrested within threeyears, which helps to explain why U.S.

imprisonment rates are so high. Another rea-son is the increased length of sentences, the re-sult of “tough on crime” sentencing laws thatbecame popular in the 1970s.

Before 1970, rehabilitation was the dom-inant philosophy among American criminol-ogists. The change to a harsher regime wassignaled by sociologist Robert Martinson ofthe City University of New York, who, in aninfluential article published in 1974, conclud-ed that “with few exceptions, the rehabilita-tive efforts that have been reported so far havehad no appreciable effect on recidivism.” Thepress expressed this idea under headlines suchas “nothing works.” In light of rehabilita-tion’s supposed failure, James Q. Wilson ofHarvard University and other neoconserva-tives urged longer prison sentences and, oc-casionally, capital punishment to fight crime.This view soon became the accepted wis-dom—despite Martinson’s repudiation in1979 of his earlier conclusion. In 1985 AlfredS. Regnery, the administrator of the Office ofJuvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,claimed that “rehabilitation . . . has failedmiserably,” and in 1987 Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese referred to the “substantiallydiscredited theory of rehabilitation.” In 1989the Supreme Court upheld federal sentencingguidelines that removed rehabilitation fromserious consideration.

About 10 years ago opinion began to shiftagain, largely because a new research tech-nique, meta-analysis, convincingly dem-onstrated that rehabilitation does work. Themethod combines the results of many studies,thereby averaging out extraneous and idio-syncratic factors. Meta-analyses of nearly2,000 studies encompassing a variety of ap-proaches aimed at reducing recidivism have re-vealed that the average effect of rehabilitationis positive, though fairly modest, in part be-cause of the inclusion of a number of therapiesthat did not work. Certain behavioral modifi-cation programs for violent offenders and formedium-risk sex offenders have been particu-

larly effective, achieving reductions in recidi-vism of 50 percent or more as compared withcontrols. Programs targeting juvenile offend-ers—including mentoring, skills instructionand, for teenage mothers, intensive home vis-iting to reduce child abuse—attained high suc-cess rates in preventing crime.

Research studies measure the effectivenessof therapies in an artificial setting, but in real-life situations the treatments are often less con-vincing. Nevertheless, results such as these,even if diluted by half, would still make a sub-stantial dent in the U.S. crime rate. Rehabili-tation therapy is expensive in the short term;still, it is far cheaper than the criminal justicesystem, which incurred direct costs of $147billion in 1999 and has been growing by morethan 5 percent annually in recent years.

One of the leading researchers on criminal

behavior, James McGuire of the University ofLiverpool in England, notes that, in general,punishment is not effective and may actuallyincrease crime rates. Boot camps, three-strikeslaws, so-called scared-straight programs andthe death penalty are proving ineffective inpreventing recidivism. Public notification ofreleased sex offenders in the community—

“Megan’s Law” measures—has never beenadequately tested for efficacy.

Rodger Doyle can be reached atrdoyle2@adelphia.net

Reducing Crime REHABILITATION IS MAKING A COMEBACK BY RODGER DOYLE

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HOMICIDERAPEARSONDRUG TRAFFICKINGASSAULTFRAUDDRUG POSSESSIONALL OFFENSESROBBERYBURGLARYLARCENY/THEFTMOTOR VEHICLE THEFT

Felons Arrested within Three Years of Release (percent)0 10 20 30

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40 50 60 70 80

S O U R C E : B u r e a u o f J u s t i c e S t a t i s t i c s . C h a r t i s b a s e d o nd a t a f r o m 1 5 s t a t e s , r e p r e s e n t i n g t w o t h i r d s o f a l lp r i s o n e r s r e l e a s e d i n 1 9 9 4 i n t h e U . S . T h e o r i g i n a l a r r e s td o e s n o t n e c e s s a r i l y m a t c h t h e r e a s o n f o r t h e r e a r r e s t .

33A S C I E N T I F I C A M E R I C A N M A Y 2 0 0 3

Percent of prisoners released in 1994 who were rearrested within three years:

Male 68Female 58

White 63Black 73Hispanic 65

Ages 14–17 8218–24 7525–29 7130–34 6935–39 6640–44 5845 and older 45

What Works: ReducingReoffending. Edited by James

McGuire. John Wiley & Sons, 1995.

Evidence-Based ProgrammingToday. James McGuire. Paperdelivered at the International

Community CorrectionsAssociation annual conference,

Boston, 2002.

Offender Rehabilitation andTreatment. Edited by James

McGuire. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

Recidivism of PrisonersReleased in 1994. Patrick A.

Langan and David J. Levin. Bureauof Justice Statistics, June 2002.

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