ABSTRACT
States typically refer to the 'correctional facilities' in their 'corrections' system, and we will follow standard terminology when discussing correctional goals, but, clearly, the goal of the system is also punishment. This chapter examines the research related to prediction in correctional classification. Indeterminate sentences and early release based on good behavior was begun as early as the late 1800s, and some historians have called the early 1900s the reformatory era because of the increased numbers of reformatories which were aimed at younger and more 'reformable' inmates. However, it was after the 1960s when rehabilitation came to the forefront of the correctional mission; the period of the 1960s through 1975 has been called the rehabilitative era. Probation suffered the same fate as all 'rehabilitative' programs in the 1980s, when politics and public sentiment moved toward a more punitive approach with offenders.
