Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Correctional personnel--Iowa--Attitudes; Juvenile delinquents--Rehabilitation--Iowa; Correctional personnel--Attitudes; Juvenile delinquents--Rehabilitation; Iowa;

Abstract

Numerous studies conducted over the past 20 years have suggested that support for rehabilitation in the criminal justice system has decreased. As a result of these findings, an increase in the examination of support for rehabilitation has occurred. According to much of the research on this issue, an important factor in the support of rehabilitation is the attitudes of criminal justice workers. The increasing prison populations are partially responsible for the heightened interest in this issue. It is believed by many that the attitudes of the workers in the criminal justice system have an effect on the success of the offenders. This study examines whether the decline in the rehabilitative ideal holds true for the juvenile justice system. It is quite likely that those who work directly with the juvenile offenders in the system have an impact on the success or failure of the offenders. For these reasons, attribution theory is used to guide this study. This theory is used in an attempt to explain how juvenile justice workers become oriented to their particular beliefs. This is an important factor in the examination of the support for the goal of rehabilitation. The attributions of the workers in the juvenile justice system may effect how they work with the juveniles, thus impacting the success or failure of the offenders. This study examines teachers, probation officers, and correctional officers within the juvenile justice system in order to determine which of the three are most supportive of rehabilitation. This study proposes that support for rehabilitation will be correlated with belief in environmental causes of delinquency and that there will be a correlation between training in the social sciences and support for rehabilitation. Findings indicate that support for rehabilitation is correlated with being a probation officer, a correctional officer, and belief in environmental causes of delinquency. Findings also indicate that these variables are independent of each other.

Year of Submission

1999

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

First Advisor

B. Keith Crew

Second Advisor

Jerry Stockdale

Third Advisor

Ronald J. Gorton

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

1999

Object Description

1 PDF file (52 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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