Rehab - Background

1. Rehab - Background Review: Prison Outline Walker Chap 11 Wedding cake model Walker’s discussion is contemporary --- Some background should be helpful in understanding policy issues with rehab Comments: Social/political policies like rehab usually have a history, and contemporary interest in policies pretty much always arises from specific circumstances (usually problems) that have arisen. By looking at the history of policies we can better tell where they come from, how they have worked in the past, their chances for working under changes circumstances, etc. As a smart philosopher once said: “those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it”

2. Rehab - Background Rehab is usually discussed in an individual context - not a policy (programs) context. There are important differences: • Coercion issue (forced “help”) • “Program” issues (prediction, fit, etc.) • Measuring success (short vs. long term) • “Net widening” (vs. aging out) Comments: Rehab programs relating to target groups (prisoners, probationers, etc.) are almost always coercive (do it or suffer some kind of consequences!). Program issues involve questions about who will be a good candidate for rehab, which programs are appropriate for which people (e.g. non drug users don’t need drug treatment). “Success” is often measured by short term results (e.g. improvements in behavior/attitude) but long term results are more important (relapse? recidivism?). Aging out usually has better long term results than any programs, so “net widening” might be a problem no matter how successful the program appears to be.

3. Rehab - Background Individual rehab Sometimes it works, usually it doesn’t - dieting, smoking, alcohol, gambling, drugs, self-help, financial problems, etc. *** Two key problems: dropout & relapse Given this – how to measure success – those who start, finish, etc.?? Comments: All of us know how difficult it is to get rid of bad habits (like smoking) or adopt more effective ways of doing things (eating right, working out, budgeting, etc.). All of these problems are magnified in a policy approach where coercion is usually involved. So how do we measure whether a program is successful (and worth the cost!)? By how many people finish? by short term results? by long term results? or what?

4. Rehab - Background “Aging is the best crime reduction policy we know about” (Walker) Aging = “doing nothing” (as policy) Measure: Rehab vs. Doing Nothing Doing something makes things worse! Comments: Rehab (individual and policy) is further complicated by aging out – one of the patterns that emerges pretty consistently from the research is that almost any “intervention” (doing something) hinders the process of aging out and thus is counter-productive. For example, some researchers argue that both punishing illegal drug use and drug education/treatment backfire by spreading drug use – they contribute to causing what they are trying to prevent! So the key measure of success for rehab programs is whether it works better than aging out (doing nothing) – and no rehab programs have clearly met this standard.

5. Rehab - Background Where did rehab issue come from?? Before WW2, not much of an issue -- bigger problems - wars, depression, etc. Rehab issue comes with prosperity! (Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”?) Comments: The focus on rehab appears to arise historically with prosperity. Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans tend to focus on basic needs first (food, shelter, etc.) and only after these are consistently satisfied do we look beyond to secondary needs, e.g. “quality of life” issues.

6. Rehab - Background Remember indiv side of rehab .... But we want to talk about rehab directed at subgroups in the larger population prisoners drug users “at risk” juveniles parolees etc. Comments: In terms of cj policy, most of the rehab focus is on changing targeted groups of people who are in a “coercive context” (prisoners, detainees, probationers, etc.) “they” (almost always the poor/powerless) are a problem for “society” (or more often the powerful people in a society) and rehab becomes the “nice” alternative to confinement, extermination, etc. Thus conservatives tend to say “they are a problem, punish them harshly” while liberals tend to say “they are a problem, help them change” – notice that neither usually questions the social arrangements that give them power and render others powerless.

7. Rehab - Background 1950s and 1960s – post WW2 socialism – higher wages and benefits Led to Prosperity, Optimism, Liberalism – and also the rise of rehab • Expanding economy – consumer manufacturing • Expanding opportunity – service jobs • Civil Rights Movement and Feminism • War on Poverty - “bringing everybody up” Comments: Before WW2, most Amer were rural/agricultural/small town/etc. and low wages for workers, poverty, wars, and economic depressions made life difficult for most people. After WW2, the govt adopted many socialist reforms and this led to higher wages, broader opportunities, more prosperity, etc. The rapidly growing "middle class" (basic needs now reliably met) then began to drive an interest in rehab.

8. Rehab - Background Low but rising crime rates in 1960s • baby boomers reaching the prime crime age • masked by Vietnam War & Civil Rights Mvmt • expanding drug use • Imprisonment Rate low - and dropping! A good time to fix problems!! Comments: In the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, the economy was expanding, crime rates were low, and imprisonment rates were dropping across most of the country. This seemed to many like a good time to fix problems, and this was the heyday of the rehab movement. In reality, crime rates were beginning to rise (baby boomers), but this was hardly noticed (and data was manipulated by the FBI and other police agencies) because of attention drawn by the Civil Rights Movement, the emerging anti-war movement, and emerging drug use.

9. Rehab - Background Liberal rehab approaches Diversion - into job programs, military old manufac, new service jobs, military For prisoners - rehab programs driven byindeterminate sentencing and the promise of help on release - halfway houses, etc. Comments: The "top layer" of rehab (mostly for less serious offenders) involved factory jobs and often joining the military - for more serious offenders who usually were sent to prisons for relatively short terms, the "new rehab" was to include indeterminate sentencing to push prisoners into rehab (cooperate and get out sooner) plus job training in prison, halfway houses upon release, and programs to help excons get jobs.

10. Rehab - Background 1970s The “lost decade” everything went wrong! • Vietnam disaster • War on Poverty abandoned • Declining economy • Pessimism & “Malaise” • Backlash against CRM, Liberalism, Fem’ism Comments: By the late 1960s, the US was beginning to come apart at the seams - the white/conservative backlash against the Civil Rights Mvmt, the anti-war mvmt, anti-poverty programs, etc., plus a declining economy, led to the disastrous decade of the 1970s (Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace - Gerald Ford gave Nixon a pardon preventing criminal prosecution, and then lost the next election - Jimmy Carter was a one-term president - etc.) - by the end of the 1970s, the US was (permanently?) split between mostly-white conservatives (Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980) and everybody else. Long a part of the conservative agenda, "get tough" approaches to crime (and the poor, drug users, etc.) now became the focus of much govt policy, and this what has developed and deepened since.

11. Rehab - Background Crime rates stabilized at a high level (baby boomers aging out) But distorted by conservative politicians & media crime and drug scares “our ever-increasing crime rates” Martinson Report - rehab a failure -- “Get tough” approaches become popular Comments: Meanwhile, crime rates stabilized at relatively high levels (the baby boomers began aging out) even as conservatives continued to promote the idea of "ever increasing crime rates" and the media increased their focus on crime in both news reporting and fictional TV shows, movies, etc. The popularity of the "get tough" approaches only increased with the Martinson report which (superficially) showed that rehab had not been demonstrated to work despite the expenditure of large amounts of money on programs.

12. Rehab - Background 1980s - The conservative turn Continuing econ probs - declining manufac, globalization effects Continuing abandoning of the poor War on crime, war on drugs escalate Crime rates stable, but IR rising fast Prison overcrowding, rehab declining Comments: Economic problems continued into the 1980s as manufacturing continued to decline and jobs continued to move to other countries (mainly for cheap labor). As tax bases deteriorated (lower wages led to lower tax revenues and govt expenditures) the poor were increasingly "abandoned" (services deteriorated) and poor communities were left with high crime rates. Meanwhile, overall crime rates remained stable (baby boomers aging out and "graying" of society). Popular conservative get tough approaches were sending huge numbers of poor people to prison and prisons were overcrowded and disorganized (violence, gangs, etc.). Rehab continued to decline as liberalism declined and there was no money anyway because of the cost of expanding prisons.

13. Rehab - Background 1990s - Clinton years (conservative turn continues with cons democrat admin) economic boom - based on new technologies (computers, electronics, etc.) double help for poor - econ & govt crime rates falling fast as BBs age out but - war on crime and drugs continues and IR continues to grow rapidly Huge prison expansion (at a huge cost!!) Warehouse prisons - little rehab Comments: In the 1990s the US experienced an economic boom - the new jobs, rising wages, and rising tax revenues provided some help for poor people (jobs and govt aid) and continuing aging out of the baby boomers led to big decreases in street crime rates. But the cons war on crime and drugs continued (with even more govt money to spend!) and the imprisonment rates grew rapidly. As prisons increasingly became very expensive warehouses for the poor, rehab funding was further cut and programs disappeared.

14. Rehab - Background 2000s - return to more conservative Repub admin • economy crashes + terrorism and war • double hit on the poor - econ & govt • crime decrease stops - rates level off • continuing war on crime and drugs • continuing imprisonment binge - and continuing growth of huge cost Led to the current rehab dilemma Comments: After 2000, the economy turned down and many poor jobs were lost, plus a cons govt cut the few programs for the poor that had emerged in the 1990s. The crime decreases stopped and crime rates leveled off at still high rates (esp violent crime). The war on crime and drugs escalated again and the imp binge grew faster at huge cost, and this led to a dilemma - the cost of "get tough" was finally beginning to create huge problems for state budgets (schools, health care, colleges, etc.).

15. Rehab - Background Rehab as a “political football” Rehab (policy) mostly doesn’t work -- Long history of failure But extremely high recidivism rates and the staggering costs of prisons poses a huge problem that drives govts back to rehab. Mostly at state level - states pay for most of the costs! Comments: This why "rehab is back" - it has a long history of failure and there is no reason to believe that it will work any better today than it has in the past - but conservative "get tough" approaches are an even bigger and more costly disaster - they don't work either and as prison pops grow so do recidivism rates and the cost of prisons - meanwhile states are "de-funding" public schools, colleges, health care, and other services that might actually reduce crime in order to pay for prisons. Thus states get both the high cost of prisons and high crime rates - they have to do something, but what can they do? What are the politically viable alternatives to rehab? This is where Walker's discussion of rehab starts .......

16. Next Contemporary rehab issue and research Walker Chapter 11