Training in Social Manipulation as a Rehabilitative Technique

Abstract

The traditional goal of prison rehabilitation programs has been to bring about a major change in the individual's person ality. There is widespread opinion that this cannot be accom plished in prisons. Sociological anomie theory, however, empha sizes blocked opportunity structures rather than individual personality problems in the etiology of deviant behavior. If this reasoning is accepted, then perhaps this theory should be consulted in attempts to modify such behavior. It appears that training in the techniques of social manipulation opens new avenues for achieving success, some legal, some illegal but nonviolent, and some neither strictly legal nor clearly illegal. Since more avenues for achieving success are available to those with this training, the motivation for deviance, especially phys ically aggessive deviance, may be lessened.