Prevention History of Corrections—Punishment or Rehabilitation? - Prison Reform In The Earlytwentieth Century

By 1900 Brockway's correctional philosophy had spread throughout the nation. Nonetheless, by World War I (1914–18), the idea of using educational and rehabilitative approaches was being replaced by the use of strict discipline. The way the facilities were built, the lack of trained personnel, and the attitudes of the guards made Brockway's ideas difficult to implement. In addition, the introduction of a probation system kept the offenders easiest to rehabilitate out of the reformatories.

Despite this return to discipline, the reform movement survived. The progressives of the early twentieth century believed that if prisons applied the ideas of behavioral science to the inmates, prisoners could be rehabilitated. The progressives worked to change the social environment from which criminals came and to design ways to rehabilitate individual inmates. By the 1920s reformers were strongly advocating indeterminate sentencing, parole, and treatment programs as a way to rehabilitate offenders, but this approach to corrections was not put into practice until decades later.

While many of the reforms had merit, most could not be properly implemented due to inadequate funding or the unwillingness of prison officials to act. As each reform apparently failed to solve the problem of crime, many people became disillusioned.