Indeterminate Sentencing, Rehabilitation, and Imprisonment

The Supreme Court today decided Tapia v. United States, a decision interpreting 18 U.S.C. section 3582(a).  The issue had to do with the permissibility of the imposition of a term of imprisonment specifically for the reason that it would advance the function of rehabilitation.  The language in question is this: "The court, in determining whether to impose a term of imprisonment, and, if a term of imprisonment is to be imposed, in determining the length of the term, shall consider the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation." 

The portion of Justice Kagan's majority opinion interpreting the language of the statute is worth reading for itself, but of even greater interest to me was the earlier discussion of the history of American federal sentencing.  I had not realized sufficiently that rehabilitation was perhaps the most crucial aim of the indeterminate sentencing system which was in place in the U.S. before passage of the Sentencing Reform Act -- in fact, that rehabilitation was thought to be fundamentally tied to indeterminate sentencing.  Historically, that has not necessarily been the case.  That is, (comparatively) indeterminate sentencing schemes have often been supported without any correlative support for rehabilitation as the crucial function of punishment.  The association of rehabilitation with indeterminate sentencing strikes me as a mid-twentieth century American phenomenon.

Also interesting is the simple fact that the SRA prohibits a judge from imposing incarceration for rehabilitative purposes.  This, too, as the amicus pointed out, is quite different than the earlier understanding of the pointedly rehabilitative purposes of incarceration.