Two Ohio prison practitioners with decades of experience working inside correctional institutions are questioning whether prisons could improve public safety and rehabilitation by looking beyond the behavior that brought inmates to prison and examining the realities that shaped their lives before incarceration. Willie Davis and Jeff Hunsaker have begun calling this examination Root-Cause Rehabilitation.
“Protecting public safety while rehabilitating inmates is a difficult dual mission for prisons,” Davis and Hunsaker said. “By their nature, prisons deal with the effects of crime, not the causes of crime. What if another layer of thinking could help prisons become better at both protecting the public and inmate rehabilitation?”
Davis and Hunsaker are not researchers, clinicians, psychologists, or academics, but they have worked years behind bars with inmates. Their experience has led them to two hypotheses: that lasting internal change begins when inmates willingly start facing the realities that brought them to prison, and that inmates who experience lasting internal change can become positive influences within a prison’s informal culture.
The pair is inviting correctional leaders and independent researchers to examine whether their hypotheses deserve formal investigation. They argue that instead of waiting until shortly before release to help prepare someone to live differently, a meaningful opportunity could begin years earlier to face possible childhood trauma, rejection, abandonment, fear, shame, distorted beliefs, or other realities that shaped the choices that brought them to prison.
Davis and Hunsaker have also developed reading content specifically for inmates. Their novels and short stories are intended to invite inmates to examine their own lives and the realities that shaped them—an important consideration in their primary hypothesis. Prisons cannot change the realities that brought an inmate to prison, but they may have an opportunity to help inmates face those realities and begin living differently while still incarcerated.
The implications of this proposal are significant. If Davis and Hunsaker’s hypotheses are validated through formal research, correctional facilities could adopt a more preventive approach to rehabilitation, potentially reducing recidivism and improving prison culture. By addressing the underlying causes of criminal behavior rather than merely managing its effects, prisons might better fulfill their dual mission of protecting public safety and preparing inmates for successful reentry. The call for independent researchers and correctional leaders to investigate these ideas signals a potential shift in how incarceration is approached, moving from punishment-focused models to ones that incorporate deeper reflection and personal accountability.
Davis and Hunsaker are seeking independent researchers and correctional leaders interested in examining their hypotheses. More information about their initiative, The Kronos Project, is available at www.kronosproject.net.
