The real story on whether prison reform can work. Critics of the prison and sentencing reforms in the First Step Act are echoing a claim, attributed to sociologist Robert Martinson, that when it comes to reducing recidivism among prison inmates, nothing works. As John-Michael Seibler writes, the critics are missing the full story of Martinson’s research:
Martinson’s survey hoped to shed light on what actually worked, but it was so full of “methodological complications”—as Martinson himself wrote in a 1974 essay titled “What Works? Questions and Answers about Prison Reform“—that “one cannot be certain how stable and reliable the various findings are.”
The programs that Martinson surveyed suffered from so many disparate problems—ranging from a lack of training or “buy in” among prison officials who were administering them, to inadequate evaluation methods—that ultimately, the researchers concluded that more work was needed.
Yet in the same 1974 essay, Martinson posed the question, “Does nothing work?”
He answered that while he and his colleagues had discovered no silver bullet to reduce recidivism, “it is just possible that some of our treatment programs are working to some extent, but that our research is so bad that it is incapable of telling.”
Nevertheless, as corrections expert Jerome G. Miller observed, Martinson’s arguments “were enthusiastically embraced by the national press, with lengthy stories appearing in major newspapers, news magazines, and journals, often under the headline ‘Nothing Works!’” […]
In the interest of not maintaining the status quo and expecting different results, consider the part of Martinson’s story that many people miss.
The quality of data and research on corrections practices has improved since Martinson’s original survey, just as Martinson had hoped they would—and just as they did for the Oakland A’s, HR departments, government inspectors, and a myriad of corporationsthat now rely on data instead of hunches to make better decisions.
In 1979, after studying more anti-recidivism programs, Martinsonwrote, “Contrary to my previous position, some treatment programs do have an appreciable effect on recidivism. Some programs are indeed beneficial; of equal or greater significance, some programs are harmful.”
Martinson concluded with the following: “The current system of sentencing in the United States must be reformed. … Those treatments that are helpful must be carefully discerned and increased; those that are harmful or impotent eliminated.”
[John-Michael Seibler, “Here’s What Opponents of Criminal Justice Reform Get Wrong,” The Daily Signal, November 29]
