Offender rehabilitation of true criminals is impossible because you can’t restore them to something they never were. A more precise word would be to habilitate. The biggest question is can you actually do it? Can you go into the subconscious mind of criminal offenders and change their self-defeating thoughts and behaviors? If you can’t, then you can’t (re)habilitate! If you never change criminal thinking, you’ll never change criminal behavior.
To understand what works and what doesn’t work, refer to Google information concerning criminogenic needs. Despite all the counseling efforts in the USA, rehabilitation in the offender corrections system is a major failure. Despite all the rhetoric, brochures, and research — recidivism rates remain high. The truth is always in the results. Jails and prisons today are simply human warehouses that do little to habilitate. But is it their fault? The answer is no! it is our fault. Our society’s values and deteriorating families are the breeding grounds for tomorrow’s chronic offenders. We are overwhelming the criminal justice system.
Incarceration has its limits. Given budget cuts and other restrictions, wardens and sheriff departments are doing their best. With prisons and jails full, more offenders who should be incarcerated, are going on probation. So who and what has the best chance to habilitate criminal offenders? The answer lies in the science of cognitive restructuring, best practice, and evidence-based outcomes.
Cognitive restructuring sounds good. It is a good buzzword. It’s like eating chocolate, it smells and tastes good. But we come back to the same question, is it possible to go into the subconscious mind of a criminal offender and restructure thinking errors and stop self-defeating behaviors? If we can’t, short of execution, we will never stop criminal behavior.
The key to success is our thoughts. It is our thoughts that control our life. It is our thoughts that create our feelings and emotions that result in our attitudes and behaviors, that eventually leads to the consequences of our lives. Any attempt at offender rehabilitation must first start with cognitive awareness.