Rehabilitation
The rehabilitation act was introduced in 1974 as the Rehabilitation of offenders Act
1974. This act enabled some criminal convictions to become ‘spent’ or ignores after a
rehabilitation period.
Rehabilitation is a very good method of punishing people and coming out with positive
results because majority of criminals who choose to do take rehabilitation as a method of
punishment have a mind to settle down within society. Rehabilitation is the only justification
of criminal sanctioning that obligates the state to care for an offender’s needs or welfare
(Criminological perspectives 2003). Rehabilitation was basically a process which criminals
were given in court depending on the offence to clean up their act. For example if a person
was to be convicted of drink driving. Rather than the person being sentenced to imprisonment
the criminal would have to go through rehabilitation to then come out of it with a clean
license and a re-test to drive a car again. A rehabilitation period is a set length of time from
the date of conviction. After the rehab period an ex-offender is not normally obliged to
mention his/her conviction when applying for a job or obtaining insurance, or when involved
in criminal or civil proceeding.
There are rehabilitation programmes for any sort of criminal such as: alcoholic’s, Drug Users,
People with common penalties also psychological help. Punishment and rehabilitation are
two of the four acknowledged objectives of the Criminal Justice System, with deterrence and
incapacitation being the other two (Oxford Criminology 2005). Punishment was always been
the most effective way in some minds in dealing with people who commit acts of crime.
There have been many theorists who have argued as to which is more effective punishment or
rehabilitation. Is it the positivists who advocate the theory that rehabilitation is more
effective?...