PENOLOGY - How far does the empirical evidence support the view that 'nothing works' in the punishment of the offenders?

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Law - Penology, grade: 58 Punkte = 2,5, University of Portsmouth (Institute of Criminal Justice), language: English, abstract: In the 1970's the 'nothing works' theory emerged by the works of a number of researchers doubting the effectiveness of probation and along with it rehabilitation as a means to reduce criminal offending, amongst others Robert Martinson (1974), who determined the idea of 'nothing works' in the first place. In 1974, Martinson stated that '...with few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts, that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism.' (Sarre, 1999). This essay will try to trace out how far the empirical evidence in means of official statistics, studies and reports supports this theory.