Coercive Rehabilitation Essay

Likewise, it has been criticized that rehabilitation often works against offenders’ individual rights. As a fact, it has very often been used as an excuse of unduly lengthening sentences or covering up therapeutic methods like drug therapies which can be regarded highly inadmissible. This is also a kind of coercion against the offender’s consent and it can be considered as a violation of individual rights. An example could be the United States Supreme Court decision of a case where it was considered that a prisoner mail censorship (authorised by a regulation) was justifiable on the basis of the governmental interest in rehabilitation (Procunier v Martines, [1974]). Following this example, it could be argued that this kind of discipline uses

Sometimes coercive rehabilitation is acceptable, especially when it comes to violent offenders and even justifiable without observing the possibility of infringement of offenders’ right to free will rehabilitation and their privacy and liberty rights. In addition, Burdon and Gallagher (2002) concluded that in order to protect the society, coercion may be the only efficacious way. Carlen (1989) also supports the idea of coercive rehabilitation and she argues that infringement of civil liberties rights is not a reason for rejecting such programmes. Although this might be true, how do we really know whether it actually works when it comes to effectiveness? Having stated that, in a survey conducted by Rigg (2002) it was shown that the sex offenders who took part in a coercive treatment programme did not demonstrate a high level of coercion and they believed they can refuse it due to their rights. Given that, it can be said that even coercion in this way does not feel like coercion because they know if they cooperate, they will receive something in return such as gaining a parole. If that is the case then there is actually no point of this if the offenders cannot really change because they think about the benefits for themselves not really about the consequences of their actions and how they can change remarkably. Also, for Rotman (1990), rehabilitation should be voluntary with

There is no right or wrong way to explain this, but what was meant by all the content above is that there is a real challenge of the offenders’ status and their ‘rights’ of rehabilitation in society and everyone sees its meaning differently. It is for this reason that there are many people who consider rehabilitation as something different from a right while there are the others who support it as a more hopeful, positive and humanitarian view. They think there should be an access to the right to help offenders through different social, educational and labour opportunities in order to avoid