Prisoner rehabilitation in Romania

Purpose: This paper examines the construction and the reconstruction of the concept of prisoner rehabilitation in the prison context since 1874 until today taking into account the way this concept was reflected in the law or the subsequent official documents. Some figures and trends are introduced into the discussion to help a better understanding of the concept. Rehabilitation is analyzed using a three pillars model: human capital, social capital and legitimate opportunities. Design/Methodology/Approach: The analysis mainly takes into account the primary and the secondary legislation although in order to illustrate different points statistical figures and research reports are also used. The article starts with the legislation adopted in 1874 and examines all prison legislation up to 2006, focusing particularly on prisoner rehabilitation. Findings: The article concludes that although a lot of progress took place in understanding rehabilitation from all three perspectives (human capital, social capital and legitimate opportunities) there is still room for improvement in developing legitimate opportunities for ex-prisoners. Research limitations: Although the difference between “law in theory” and “law in action” is acknowledged this articles looks mainly to the law texts. This might create a different picture of reality but nevertheless reflects the general perspective used in approaching prisoner rehabilitation. Somehow surprisingly, the subject of prisoner rehabilitation was central in almost all prison legislation although it was not always in line with the prevailing ideology. Practical implications: >As stated above, good and bad examples of behaviour transformation may be observed in the past legislation. The main policy implication is that there was a time when the issue of resettlement or aftercare was considered a penal policy issue. The current legislation is completely silent in this respect. Originality/Value: Prisoner rehabilitation is scrutinized from the historical perspective using a relatively new theoretical framework