The Many Flavors of Rehabilitation: Conflict in a Correctional System Where Rehabilitation is the Norm

• In Event: Norms, Culture and Conflict in American Prisons

Abstract

Using interviews with current and former prison staff, volunteers, and advocacy workers, as well as observational data from both state-sponsored and advocacy group meetings on corrections in Iowa, the author uncovered the ways in which different agents in the criminal justice system framed, lobbied on behalf of, and obtained resources for rehabilitative programming. Administrators in the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) actively promoted “evidence-based practices” of rehabilitation, but were also severely constrained by state legislators’ fiscal policies. Even though rehabilitative ideologies were normative throughout the IDOC, social actors had competing ideas about how this could be achieved. In order to lobby for scarce resources, criminal justice actors competed with one another for their brand of rehabilitative programming, whether it be religious, educational, behavioral, vocational, or recreational programming. In order to speak to evidence-based practices, IDOC staff and prison service providers relied heavily on recidivism rates and returns on investment calculations to make decisions, and, in some cases, manipulated these calculations in order to seek institutional support. Ultimately, those who determined the distribution of resources more heavily weighted returns on investments than recidivism, but, when possible, prison staff were creative in trying implement as many rehabilitative programs as possible.

Author

• Allison Gorga, University of Iowa