Citation

Krohn MD. Am. J. Crim. Justice 2019; 44(4): 520-535.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, College of Law Enforcement, Eastern Kentucky University, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12103-019-09477-5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

I am two months short of the 45th anniversary of attending my first professional criminology conference.. I recall being at the American Society of Criminology meeting in 1973 in an auditorium at John Jay College listening to a presentation that made several references to the soon to be published study by Martinson (1974) on correctional effectiveness. This study was the latest in a series of studies (Bailey, 1966; Robison & Smith, 1971) lamenting the fact that, as Martinson (1974; p. 25) stated, "with few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism." While the more extensive examination that Martinson also contributed to did contain some more optimistic assessments of correctional strategies (Lipton, Martinson, & Wilks, 1975), the take-away message was one of questioning whether we knew what we were doing.

Earlier that summer I had completed my comprehensive exams. I was as immersed in the literature...

Language: en

Keywords

Ethics; Impact factor scores; Metrics