Why pursuing more rehabilitative policies may actually lead to harsher punishments for prisoners.

In recent decades prison policy has a reoriented towards measures which try to rehabilitate, rather than punish offenders. While this discourse may appear to be beneficial to inmates, Anthony Grasso warns that it may actually make incarceration even more punitive for some inmates. Rehabilitative policies, he writes, often lead to harsh punishments for those who commit new crimes despite treatment. By overlooking the societal and economic inequalities which drive criminal behavior, such policies can actually feed into the politics of criminal justice hardliners.