Rehabilitation and the nature of imprisonment

The last few novels I've written about,
Read While Walking: The Reader by Bernard Schlink,
Read While Walking: Dry Ice by Stephen White, and
Read While Walking: The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais, deal with the question of rehabilitation.


I'm reminded of Red, Morgan Freeman's character from The Shawshank Redemption answering for the parole board at each hearing the question of whether he is rehabilitated.  Ultimately, he says he doesn't know what that word means.


In The Reader, Hannah goes to prison, but only towards the end of her incarceration does she seem to conclude that she must personally make reparations to earn forgiveness.


In Dry Ice, Alan Gregory concludes that there are some people who can't be rehabilitated and perhaps the death penalty is warranted.  He has reversed an earlier position that most evil has either external or internal causes which can be treated or addressed and rehabilitation achieved.


In The Two Minute Rule, Max is an ex-con who wants to be a good person, but his only answers to problems involve returning to his pattern of criminal activity and the people with whom he shared a criminal past.


Erle Stanley Gardner is one of my favourite authors, and I really enjoy the novels he wrote under the pseudonym A.A. Fair (the Bertha Cool and Donald Lam detective novels).  In the later novels (I think once his pseudonym was common knowledge) he included forewords addressing some of the figures in penal studies, and asking questions about rehabilitation, although the novels themselves don't engage with those problems or questions.


I find I'm enjoying novels considering those aspects of late (I've got a couple of A.A. Fair novels in my stack currently, as well as The Vendetta Defense by Lisa Scottolini, and I recently finished Identical by Scott Turow).


Incarceration presumably is intended to (1) prevent further crime/protect society from the offender during the term of incarceration; (2) make a statement to the individual that their action was wrong and has consequences; (3) make a statement to society that these types of actions have consequences (and presumably influence behavior of other persons thinking of undertaking such acts); and (4) make the individual unlikely to commit that crime or others again (rehabilitation).  I'm not sure that remorse for the crime, confession or reparations to victims are goals of incarceration in and of itself, though those may be elements which demonstrate rehabilitation.


There may be other aspects as well, but those are the ones that presently come to mind.  My sense is that rehabilitation tends to be the main focus for people considering the role of  incarceration as a penalty for a crime


So, if an offender is completely rehabilitated, should that be the sole determinative criteria for the release of an offender from incarceration (or does it mean there is no need for incarceration in the first place if an offender will not offend again)?   If the offender is not at all rehabilitated at the end of their sentence, is there any justification to release or not release the offender? 


Part of the reason the question arises in my mind are some news stories describing a practice (it seems) of charging persons with additional crimes (which pre-date their incarceration) just as their term of incarceration is about to end.


While it would be difficult to argue that past crimes are not deserving of punishment, does that undermine the rehabilitation process?  It accomplishes goals 1 and 3 (protecting society during the term of incarceration and making a statement that the past behavior is wrong), but in so doing, does it undermine goals 2 and 4?  The individual will likely not feel that it seems like justice to have crimes prosecuted piecemeal for the purpose of  obtaining consecutive sentences and removing from the judge the ability to determine an appropriate sentence for the entirety of the criminal activity.  It also renders any rehabilitation achieved meaningless, as it deprives the offender of the chance to demonstrate his or her rehabilitation, and makes the balance of the sentence or the new sentence exist for the sake of punishment alone.  Even goal 1 may not be achieved, because if the offender is truly rehabilitated, then there would then be no further risk to society.


Perhaps (if rehabilitation is the sole determinative criteria) an ideal answer would be a flexible sentencing system that incarcerated people until they were rehabilitated, almost irrespective of anything else, but in such case there would need to be means both to achieve rehabilitation and to evaluate whether it had in fact been achieved.  It's a challenging political problem though, because (as A.A. Fair points out) there is little political capital to be made in recommending studies and spending on criminals already incarcerated particularly if there is a suggestion that rehabilitation could be better achieved absent incarceration.


As I said, I'm enjoying novels that consider the problem.  Any suggestions for fiction addressing the rehabilitation question would be appreciated.