Two Ohio prison practitioners with decades of experience working inside correctional institutions are asking whether prisons could improve public safety and rehabilitation by looking beyond the behavior that brought inmates to prison and examining the realities that shaped their lives before prison. They have begun calling this examination Root-Cause Rehabilitation.
Willie Davis and Jeff Hunsaker, who are not researchers, clinicians, psychologists, or academics but have worked years behind bars with inmates, have developed two hypotheses: that lasting internal change begins when inmates willingly start facing the realities that brought them to prison, and that inmates who experience lasting internal change can become positive influences within a prison's informal culture. They are inviting correctional leaders and independent researchers to examine whether their hypotheses deserve formal investigation.
"Protecting public safety while rehabilitating inmates is a difficult dual mission for prisons," Davis and Hunsaker say. "By their nature, prisons deal with the effects of crime, not the causes of crime. What if another layer of thinking could help prisons become better at both protecting the public and inmate rehabilitation?"
The practitioners question the timing of current rehabilitation efforts. "Instead of waiting until shortly before release to help prepare someone to live differently when released, what might happen if a meaningful opportunity began years earlier to face possible childhood trauma, rejection, abandonment, fear, shame, distorted beliefs, or other realities that shaped the choices that brought them to prison?" says Davis.
Davis and Hunsaker have also developed reading content specifically for inmates. Their novels and short stories are intended to invite inmates to examine their own lives and the realities that shaped them—an important consideration in their primary hypothesis. Prisons cannot change the realities that brought an inmate to prison, but they may have an opportunity to help inmates face those realities and begin living differently while still incarcerated.
The implications for the corrections industry and public safety are significant. If the hypotheses hold, early intervention could reduce recidivism and improve prison culture, potentially lowering costs and enhancing community safety. The approach also raises questions about how prisons allocate resources and train staff. Davis and Hunsaker are seeking independent researchers and correctional leaders interested in examining their hypotheses. More information about their initiative, The Kronos Project, is available at www.kronosproject.net.
As prisons nationwide grapple with overcrowding and high recidivism rates, the call for evidence-based, humane approaches is growing. Whether Root-Cause Rehabilitation gains traction remains to be seen, but the questions raised by these two veterans could prompt a reevaluation of how prisons prepare inmates for life after release.
