> Unless the definition of rehabilitation in the US is different from the rest of the world I don't see any attempts at that.
I'm not saying the current system is rehabilitative, but rather that it's a perverse consequence of attempts in the 1960's at making the penal system rehabilitative. The rehabilitative approach shifted the focus from the offense to the offender. This is logical: in a penal system the punishment fits the crime. In a rehabilitative system, the punishment is tailored to the offender (ideally with an eye towards reducing recidivism).
That backfired, because it turns out criminal offenders aren't particularly sympathetic. Once the focus was on the offender, it became much easier for people to justify long sentences and harsh punishment than when the focus was on the crime in the abstract.
The deep irony of the focus on the offender is that it allows us to punish Jamal from the hood much more harshly than Johnny from the suburbs for the same exact crime, all because Johnny doesn't have a rap sheet of minor offenses and is socialized to look contrite and afraid at sentencing.
I'm not saying the current system is rehabilitative, but rather that it's a perverse consequence of attempts in the 1960's at making the penal system rehabilitative. The rehabilitative approach shifted the focus from the offense to the offender. This is logical: in a penal system the punishment fits the crime. In a rehabilitative system, the punishment is tailored to the offender (ideally with an eye towards reducing recidivism).
That backfired, because it turns out criminal offenders aren't particularly sympathetic. Once the focus was on the offender, it became much easier for people to justify long sentences and harsh punishment than when the focus was on the crime in the abstract.
The deep irony of the focus on the offender is that it allows us to punish Jamal from the hood much more harshly than Johnny from the suburbs for the same exact crime, all because Johnny doesn't have a rap sheet of minor offenses and is socialized to look contrite and afraid at sentencing.