A meta-evaluative synthesis of the effects of custodial and community-based offender rehabilitation
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708241256501 |
| Author | Johann Koehler,Friedrich Lösel |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
A meta-evaluative synthesis of
the effects of custodial and
community-based offender
rehabilitation
Johann Koehler
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Friedrich Lösel
University of Cambridge, UK; University of Erlangen-Nuremberg,
Germany
Abstract
We synthesize 53 meta-analyses on the effectiveness of correctional treatment applied to a wide
variety of offender groups delivered in either custodial or community-based settings. Those meta-
analyses revealed positive overall effects on reoffending of correctional treatment delivered in
both settings. However, the treatment setting is also associated with complex moderator effects.
With respect to effect size, for most groups, community-based correctional treatment is asso-
ciated with statistically significant larger reductions in reoffending than treatments delivered in cus-
todial settings. With respect to effect precision, custodial treatments report more consistent effects
on reoffending than community-based treatments. The findings extend and develop the insight that
treatment flexibility, such as is found among community-based treatments, can optimize program
effectiveness. Likewise, the opportunities for monitoring and treatment fidelity that custodial set-
tings enable can homogenize outcomes. Nonetheless, the promising results observed among treat-
ments delivered both inside and outside institutional settings implicate a complex policy tradeoff
between prioritizing strong performance and consistent effects.
Keywords
Correctional treatment, meta-analysis, offender rehabilitation, reoffending, review of reviews
Corresponding author:
Johann Koehler, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and PoliticalScience, Houghton St.,
London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Email: j.koehler@lse.ac.uk
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2025, Vol. 22(1) 3–29
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14773708241256501
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
Introduction
Criminologists have long sought to pry open punishment’s black box to understand the
prospects of meaningfully rehabilitative criminal justice. To that end, meta-analytic evi-
dence on the effects of correctional treatment consistently shows mean positive effects in
reducing reoffending. Yet those meta-analytic insights often skirt thorny questions about
the role of custodial and community settings in rehabilitative criminal justice.
Consequently, hard battle lines have developed over the propriety of offender rehabilita-
tion programs within correctional institutions and outside them. In particular, prior cor-
rectional research leaves few cues to inform policy-makers who are balancing complex
tradeoffs between policy imperatives extending from strong performance to consistent
effects. We therefore compare meta-analytic findings on the effectiveness of correctional
treatment applied to a wide variety of offender groups delivered in either the community
or institutional settings: if meaningful rehabilitation is among criminal justice’s goals,
then does the treatment setting matter?
Proponents of community-based rehabilitation doubt that sound correctional treatment
can overcome the criminogenic influences that custodial settings foster. These qualities
include, but are not limited to, “contagion”effects within criminal subculture (e.g.,
Bayer et al., 2009; Ouss, 2011; Stevenson, 2017); instruction in skills conducive
toward offending (e.g., Damm and Gorinas, 2020); adoption of antisocial values and
identities (e.g., Pyrooz and Decker, 2019; Skarbek, 2014); defiance and resentment
(e.g., Beijersbergen et al., 2016; Bierie, 2013); desensitization to deterrent effects
through continued exposure to severe punishment (e.g., Kleiman, 2009; Robinson and
Darley, 2004); social isolation and stress (e.g., Liebling and Arnold, 2004; Phillips,
2012); loss of supportive social bonds (e.g., Crewe, 2012); stigmatization in the commu-
nity (e.g., Goffman, 2014; Jones, 2018); individual-level obstacles to secure employment,
financial and housing problems (e.g., Chesney-Lind and Mauer, 2003; De Giorgi, 2017;
Western, 2018); and structural-level cumulative disadvantage (e.g., Clear, 2009; Kirk and
Wakefield, 2018).
On the other hand, research suggests that some custodial conditions may even be con-
ducive to desistance or rehabilitation. Examples of the potential benefits include, but are
not limited to, specific deterrence due to the experience of harsh punishment (at least for
some offender groups; e.g., Sherman and Berk, 1984; Weinrath and Gartrell, 2001); tem-
porary incapacitation (e.g., Blumstein, 2005; Lee and McCrary, 2017); “growing out”of
crime due to aging (e.g., Piquero et al., 2007; Sampson and Laub, 1993); reduced access
to alcohol and drugs and custodial measures against addiction (e.g., Mitchell et al., 2007;
Shapland et al., 2012); separation from previous gangs and deviant cliques (e.g., LaFree
et al., 2018); new life chances due to education and vocational training (e.g., Bozick et al.,
2018; Wilson et al., 2000); opportunities to cultivate prosocial skills in correctional treat-
ment (e.g., Bonta and Andrews, 2024; Lipsey and Cullen, 2007); and support for resettle-
ment and aftercare in the community (e.g., Maguire and Raynor, 2006; Markson et al.,
2015).
Two practical problems beset policymakers seeking to balance these competing
claims. The first practical problem is that both sets of claims are partially confounded
—and besides, they may be relevant for only some groups under specific conditions
4European Journal of Criminology 22(1)
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