Preface

• Pages: xi-xvii
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7863(2012)0000013004
• Date: 21 May 2012
• Published date: 21 May 2012
• Author: Erica Bowen,Sarah Brown

PREFACE

Questions regarding the effectiveness of criminal justice efforts to reduce

crime have dominated social and political thinking in this area for more

than a century (Bowen, 2011). During this time a number of philosophical

shifts regarding the aims of correctional systems have occurred, fuelled

typically by the prevailing political standpoint (McGuire, 2005). At the start

of the twentieth century, policymakers in the United States and United

Kingdom placed faith in the rehabilitative ideal and offender ‘treatment’-

dominated corrections policies (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). In this context

‘treatment’ refers to a range of interventions designed to alter the individual,

contextual and social factors that sustain offending behaviour (Hollin,

1999). This remained the prevailing perspective for the subsequent seven

decades until questions arose regarding the quality of ‘state run’ corrections

facilities in the United States in the early 1970s. At this point, evaluation

science was one of many inf‌luences on a change of policy (Hollin, 1999).

Martinson’s (1974) now infamous research synthesis, described by Glaes

(1998, p. 713) as ‘a watershed moment’, provided politicians and policy-

makers with greater justif‌ication for changing the focus of corrections

policy. Although arguably it was observers misreporting of Martinson’s

claims about the evidence which were most inf‌luential, rather than the

review itself. According to Martinson (1974):

It is just possible that some of our treatment programs are working to some extent, but

that our research is so bad that it is incapable of telling. Having entered this very serious

caveat, I am bound to say that these data ygive us very little reason to hope that we

have in fact found a sure way of reducing recidivism through rehabilitation. This is not

to say that we found no instances of success or partial success; it is only to say that these

instances have been isolated, producing no clear pattern to indicate the eff‌icacy of any

particular method of treatment. (p. 49)

Despite the caveat noted, the results of this review were widely seen as

indicating that ‘nothing works’ in offender rehabilitation. As a result of the

range of factors and subsequent debates regarding criminal justice interven-

tions, an emphasis on deterrence and incapacitation within penal policy

returned, though a small chorus of dissenting voices (e.g. Garrett, 1985;

xi