Abandoning The Medical Model In Corrections: Some Implications And Alternatives

• Author: Harry E. Allen,Nick Gatz
• Date: 01 October 1974
• Published date: 01 October 1974
• DOI: 10.1177/003288557405400202
• Subject Matter: Articles

4

Abandoning

The

Medical

Model

In

Corrections:

Some

Implications

And

Alternatives

By

Harry

E.

Allen

and

Nick

Gatz*

*

Professor

Allen

is

Associate

Professor

and

Director,

Program

for

the

Study

of

Crime

and

Delinquency,

School

of

Public

Administration,

the

Ohio

State

University.

Mr.

Gatz

is

Superintendent,

Research

and

Administration,

the

Adult

Parole

Authority.

Ohio

Department

of

Rehabilitation

and

Correction.

The

views

expressed

herein

are

personal,

not

as a

member

of

the

Adult

Parole

Authority,

and

are

not

necessarily

the

opinions

of

the

Ohio

Department

of

Re-

habilitation

and

Corrections

nor

of

sponsoring

and

contracting

agencies.

Introduction

Are

we

hearing

the

death

knell

of

the

medical

model

in

cor-

rections ?

Apparently

so,

if

the

research

is

to

be

believed.1

Bailey,

Logan

and

Martinson,2

among

others,

have

looked

at

hundreds

of

treatment

programs

evaluated

over

a

broad

scale

of

rigorousness

and,

giving

even

biased

evaluations

the

benefit

of

any

doubt,3

conclude

that

none

of

these

hundreds

of rehabilitation

programs

are

consis-

tently

effective.

The

medical

model

in

corrections

was

the

outgrowth

of

the

success

of

the

biological

and

medical

sciences,

particularly

in

the

last

century.

As

the

&dquo;ideology

of

evil&dquo;

eroded

in

correctional

practice

the

medical

model

gradually

became

the

dominant

approach

that

governed

correctional

practices,

especially

in

the

last

four

decades.

WaysonS

argues:

The

social

sciences,

guided

by

an

empiricist

philosophy,

led

corrections

to

the

individual

in

the

search

for

the

causes

of

crime,

because

he

was

&dquo;sick,&dquo;

&dquo;anti-social&dquo;

or

&dquo;deprived.&dquo;

One

only

had

to

describe

the

etiology

of

the

disease

and

prescribe

appropiate

&dquo;cures.&dquo;

Philosophi-

cally,

the

approach

denies

free

will

by

positing

that

cul-

tural,

sociological,

or

psychological

forces

make

the

in-

dividual

incapable

of

choosing.

The

objective

of

cor-

rections,

particularly

incarceration,

was

to

rehabilitate.

Such

significant

correctional

and

criminal

justice

administrators

and

researchers

as

Raymond

Procunier,

Richard

McGee,

James

Q.

Wilson,

David

Fogel

and

William

Nagel

are

opposed

to

the

medical

model

and/or

its

requisite,

the

indeterminate

sentence.6

Contempor-

ary

criticisms

of

the

medical

model

do

not

follow

political

lines

and

there

are

few

distinctions

between

the

Right

and

Left.

Increasingly,

there

are

salient

charges

that

institutions

cannot

rehabilitate,

that

prisoners

are

not

sick,

that

incarceration

does

not

cure,

that

treatment

is

a

myth,

and

that

nothing

works.

It

might

be

better,

conclude

the

disclaimers,

if

we

faced

reality

and

devoted

our

energies

to

more

productive

alternatives.

Indeed,

some

states

(e.g.