Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the creation of parole in California and the growth of its bureaucracy up to the end of the 1930s. It analyzes key legislative statutes that signal a break from the past and how those laws changed California's correctional system. The book also analyzes the meaning of rehabilitation as expressed in those legislative changes and parole-related policy documents that followed these changes. It traces various aspects of the rehabilitative process and how they changed over time. The book talks about the historical timeline and covers the mid-1970s through the 1990s. It focuses on polices passed to support the legislative goal of rehabilitation. While the reorganization was to lay the groundwork for change, prison overcrowding hampered rehabilitative efforts. The book discusses what rehabilitation means within California corrections and implications of this meaning for offender rehabilitation broadly.