(Editor's Note: Sister Janet Valente, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Women's Services for the Georgia Department of Corrections, has submitted her viewpoints on the January 19 Bulletin article "The Search For Rehabilitation" by John A. Gray, an inmate of the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta.)

"The Search for Rehabilitation" is an apt title to situate the challenge for those committed to the field of corrections today. Though beset by frustrations and apparent failures, we are precisely "in search" for both the meaning of this controversial, word term and the reality we can give it within the institutional context of everyday prison existence. Furthermore, we must be "in search" -- there is no other recourse but to keep on going on!

Mr. Gray is rightly angered by the Federal Bureau's stance that indeed Rehabilitation has failed and the answer now lies in fixed sentences, no good time, no paroles, etc. Debating this in a substantial way would take more time than is presently available, but I would make this initial response to points raised in Mr. Gray's article:

1) As a society, we cannot afford to abandon the search for Rehabilitation, dismayed as we might be by what we perceive as failure after concerted effort. There are ways in which one could agree that rehabilitation has indeed never been tried or realistically defined given the inherent limitations that flow from the institutional setting itself. It is precarious at best to blend treatment and security, particularly when the most essential human element, namely freedom, can not be operative behind bars; also the total effect of the prison environment and the incarceration experience can so harshly impact the human person as to negate any substantial effect the treatment offered can have in terms of enabling overall changes.

2) John's point is well taken that we need to offer hope and motivation. If this point is to be realistically dealt with, we must remember that while human custody and reallocation of resources for treatment such as psychiatric care, etc., should facilitate the motivational process, ultimately motivation has to come from within the individual; the prison setting by its very nature is limited in what it can do to actually motivate; resource allocation has to be made on the basis of who we think will benefit most. Thus, while there is a point that we can't forget, the multiple offender, it is understandable that the first offender is getting a first shot at opportunities right now -- one has to face the pragmatic financial limits that exist.

3) I think that as a society we do not comprehend at all the very stark effects that the separation from one's home and the deprivation of personal freedom involve -- there can be no doubt that this is the heart of punishment. Society needs to reassess this in its yen to keep compounding punishment. To what good? To whose benefit? Certainly neither the individual's nor society's when we look at the astonishingly high recidivism rate.

4) The chance to earn good time restores the rightful sense of responsibility a person must assume for his/her actions. To deny this as an alternative to the perceived failure of rehabilitation theories could not be any more self-defeating. Somewhere at the core of every crime pattern is the question of the appropriate use of responsibility and freedom. Adopting such a stance, including no paroles, etc., would in the long run punish none other than society itself.