Testing the Rehabilitative Ideal among College Students

This study examines where future practitioners and policymakers (i.e., students majoring in criminal justice) fall on the punishment–rehabilitation continuum. A scale comprised of global measures of rehabilitation was administered to a purposive/convenience sample (N = 633) of college students at five colleges/universities in the northeastern USA. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to compare scale and item means across gender, academic year, age, major, and other variables. Results indicate that support for the rehabilitation of offenders tends to be present across a number of demographic indicators. The policy and pedagogical implications of such attitudes are discussed.