Changing Philosophies and Prison Management

• NCJ Number: 115398
• Journal: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume: 21 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1988) Pages: 214-226
• Author(s): W C Paterson
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: A draft of this paper was presented to the Third Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology, Melbourne, August 1987.

Annotation

This article examines the complexity of offender rehabilitation as a measurable concept, the difficulties faced in introducing new inmate programs, and the problems of program adaptation. The approach to prison programs in Tasmania (Australia) is used to illustrate the difficulties faced by practitioners in implementing inmate rehabilitation programs.

Abstract

Rehabilitative program effects are difficult to measure, since data obtained even with the most sophisticated instruments can be interpreted in several ways and be shaped to fit a preferred view. Impediments to program implementation include funding shortages, resistant staff and inmates, and the difficulty program specialists have in being accepted by correctional officers and inmates. The case study of Tasmania demonstrates the difficulties faced by a prison system which has only one maximum security prison. It cannot hope to offer the specialized programs provided in larger prison system. All prisons are facing the difficulty of balancing or harmonizing the rehabilitative and custodial expectations for prisons. Because the prison is designed to restrain and remove offenders from normative society both to protect the public and punish the offender, the prison environment is ill-adapted to prepare offenders to behave normatively in the free society outside the prison. Prisons have neither the manpower, expertise, resources, nor facilities to socialize inmates. 62 references.