This dissertation project traces the meaning of rehabilitation as a goal of the correctional and parole system in California. In 2005, California restructured its correctional system to place a greater emphasis on rehabilitation. For parole, the turn to rehabilitation appears as a reemergence of a policy that dominated California penal law before the 1970s. It is unclear, however, whether what is meant by "rehabilitation" in California's correctional system after 2005 is similar to the policies relied upon before the 1970s, or if it is something different. Understanding what is meant by rehabilitation in California's correctional system, and how it is different from previous versions, is necessary to understand how rehabilitation is achieved through the parole system. As such, this project asks the following questions: 1) What is meant by rehabilitation as a goal of California's correctional system as expressed in the 2005 legislation and subsequent reorganization of the system? 2) How did the current version of rehabilitation come about? 3) How does the current version compare to prior meanings of rehabilitation in the context of California's correctional system? and 4) How does the legislative intent of rehabilitation impact the practice of parole? By drawing on the methodologies of comparative historical and textual analyses, this study will focus on what rehabilitation means, how the current call for rehabilitation came about, and its relationship to prior attempts at rehabilitation within California's correctional system as a whole, and, more specifically, within the parole system. In so doing, this study will attempt to provide a better understanding of rehabilitation as a legislative goal and how rehabilitation is mandated to the parole system.
