Keywords
legal system
anthropological paradigm
clinical paradigm
rehabilitative approach
penitentiary approach
socialization
How to Cite
Abstract
Background. One of the main issues of applied legal psychology remains the organization of the effective functioning of the penitentiary system within the legal system, the main purpose of which is social modeling of the behavior of people who have committed crime offenses. Using the paradigmatic approach to legal psychology and its inherent scientific pluralism, we can distinguish several ways of the implementation of the penitentiary function that should be differentiated.
Objective. To determine the elements of the rehabilitative approach to penitentiary system reforming, while studying the case of US state of California, using a paradigmatic context regarding the legal and psychological issues.
Methods. A statistical analysis of election results and case-study of election campaigns (including the 2020 and 2024 California district attorney elections) were used to identify the main elements of the rehabilitative approach to justice system reform pursued from 2020 to 2024, and to mark the reception of these reforms among different social groups.
Results. The article examines the applied and theoretical aspects of the penitentiary system reforming in American cities, as well as it identifies the main legal and psychological determinants of their implementation using the example of the city of Los Angeles from 2020 to 2024. Two approaches are considered: rehabilitative and purely penitentiary. The rehabilitative approach to the justice system is more liberal in nature and it defines the main objective of the criminal justice system as the reintegration and readaptation of defendants. At that time, the purely penitentiary direction is more conservative and focuses on the punishment process itself. The article characterizes and defines socio-psychological and individual-psychological components and manifestations of the rehabilitative or «progressive» approach to penitentiary system reforming. Primarily, the psychological component of the issue would include the reaction of various population groups regarding the process of progressive judiciary reformation.
Conclusions. Among the features of the rehabilitative penitentiary system reforming in California, the following can be singled out: explanation of the source of the crime origin by external factors; exclusion of the financial component from the penitentiary system to reduce social inequality in the judicial system (among people of different wealth); focus on a rehabilitational rather than a punitive measures; synthetic nature of crime prevention; humanitarian and ideological determinism of the approach, which contributes to the difficulties of the reforms implementation in practice.
Key words: legal psychology, legal system, anthropological paradigm, clinical paradigm, rehabilitative approach, penitentiary approach, socialization.
Received: March 21, 2026
Accepted: May 21, 2026
Published: June 30, 2026
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