Feasible and Ethical Dilemmas of Rehabilitation - Focusing on Community Sanction

Abstract

Imprisonment and rehabilitation are two widely used approaches to crime control in countries around the world. In recent years, numerous scholars have engaged in theoretical reasoning and empirical research from various angles in an attempt to argue that rehabilitation is superior to imprisonment in both feasibility and ethical considerations for offenders. Community sanctions, as a primary form of rehabilitative punishment, indeed exhibit several advantages over traditional retributive incarceration. However, the feasibility and ethical dimensions of rehabilitative community sanctions face significant challenges in the absence of personalized needs assessments, resource constraints within the criminal justice system, a tendency towards conservatism, and a theoretical inclination towards explaining crime through social factors. It is imperative to recognize the complexity and limitations of rehabilitation and adopt a more nuanced approach in sentencing and correction, striving to find a balance between offenders' rights and the public interest.