Recidivism: Trying to Rehabilitate Prisoners
Different approaches to reforming and rehabilitating people in prison
Different approaches to reforming and rehabilitating people in prison
Modern neuroscience hints that some people who commit crimes may do so because they are sick. In Sick Criminals Healthy Citizens we explored some case studies in which people’s crimes and unwanted actions were linked to biochemical or physiological factors. Developments in neuroscience challenge the foundations upon which judiciary and penal systems operate. In short, legal systems assume that all people are equally able to make rational choices. Most of the people who have been incarcerated will be released. One of the biggest challenges that prison systems face is how to prepare individuals for life after incarceration.
The fact that many people who have been incarcerated, commit another crime within a few years, suggests that either the carceral system has failed to reform them or that it has failed to identify which inmates are likely to be re-offenders. Societies have focused on both to reduce crime. Different nations have instituted programs to help people integrate into society thus lowering the rate of re-offending (or at least of those getting caught).
For example, Norway is known for having the most humane prisons in the world. Their approach to crime is based on rehabilitating people, by placing them in an environment similar to society, so that they can learn to be “good neighbors”. This view holds that crime “can be unlearned”, because people who commit crimes are not permanently criminals. This is why we have suggested that it may be important to avoid labeling people who have committed crimes, as criminals.
Norway has the lowest reoffending rate of all the Nordic states, which, in contrast to the US, the comparison is more astonishing. A study tracking former inmates for five years found that 67% are re-arrested in the United States whereas about 20% are re-arrested in Norway. However, an analysis of re-incarcerations suggests that, in Norway 25% of former prisoners are incarcerated whereas in the US it is close to 28%. The similarity in re-incarceration rates despite vastly different approaches to life in prison is interesting to ponder. A series of hypothesis can be drawn:
Different people require different interventions.
There are underlying biological or physiological factors that drive a certain percentage of humans to commit crimes regardless of other factors.
Systemic factors which make it easier to apprehend people who have already been imprisoned (fingerprints and other data have been collected).
Similar support structures or lack thereof outside penal systems. Socio-economic factors that first pushed a person into committing a crime may still be in place.
Some researchers advocate advances in the sciences which they claim could inform sentencing, rehabilitation, and paroling. Currently, people who have been incarcerated for committing crimes are released after completing their sentence or after a parole board makes a determination. The rates of re-incarceration and rearrest discussed above include both people who completed their sentences and those that were released early.
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist who also investigates the relationship between science and the law. Eagleman and his team have developed a screening test that is better at predicting whether criminals will be re-arrested than psychiatrists and parole boards. This screening tool consists of a number of questions and data. Eagleman and his team forthrightly recognise that no tool could possibly predict the future. Nevertheless, it would be remiss to dismiss scientific insights into how to identify which people are likely to re-offend.
Scientific advances could also be used to help people control their criminal urges. Dr. Eagleman’s team has started a project called prefrontal gym. They decide to start with smoking cessation and if successful they plan to move to people who have committed crimes. Using functional MRI (fMRI) they can see brain activity live. This technology allows them to identify which parts of a person’s brain lights up when they are experiencing cravings for smoking. The researchers can translate this activity into an activity bar and ask the individual to lower the bar. They posit that this can help the individual quell their urge. In short, this could help people recognize and dampen a desire upon which they should not act. This approach medicalizes crime in several ways.
The prefrontal gym treats criminal impulses as other physiological urges. First, it assumes that a medical machine can provide insights into desire. Second, it draws a connection between a physiological dependence on nicotine and an alleged compulsion to commit a crime. Third, it suggests an intervention for a physiological condition would work for criminal tendencies. This may indeed be the case for some conditions.
In Scandinavian countries crime has been medicalised since the 1930s. Olof Kingberg, a Swedish psychiatrist, considered that “criminal behavior was a symptom of mental illness unique to each individual which could be altered by a skilled psychiatrist”. The medicalization of crime can focus either on the individual suffering from an illness or in protecting society from disease.
Judicial systems have also been influenced by advances in neuroscience. A brain scan saved Grady Nelson in 2005. Nelson was sentenced to life in prison after his defense lawyer argued that brain abnormalities may have caused his violent behavior. Nelson raped his step-daughter, stabbed his step children, and stabbed his wife sixty times. The defense used Q-EEG which measures brain activity to suggest there were abnormalities. One of the jurors claimed that it was this technology that convinced him not to support the death penalty for Nelson. Other technologies such as fMRI show regions of the brain where blood has more oxygen. These technologies promise to be a window into reality. However, thoughts and actions have been shown to be able to affect which parts of the brain light up under fMRI.
Medico-scientific knowledge can allegedly serve society to identify criminals, reoffenders, and effective treatments. Scientists such as Dr. Eagleman has called for a judicial system that is informed by science so we can get “bad people off the street”. Modern science strongly suggests that we are not all equally able to make rational choices. Different carceral systems appear to effectively help some people to become better citizens. Despite these apparent successes many people continue to commit crimes and significant percentages continue to be reincarcerated.
Authors: Lucas Heili & Christian Orlic both contributed equally to this post.