rehabilitation

(noun)

A process of restoring to useful life, as through therapy and education, or of restoring to good condition, operation, or capacity. 

Related Terms

Examples of rehabilitation in the following topics:

  • Prisons and Asylums

    • Prison-building efforts in the United States during the Jacksonian Era led to widespread use of imprisonment and rehabilitative labor as the primary penalty for most crimes in nearly all states by the time of the American Civil War.
    • The aim of this method was rehabilitative: The reformers talked about the penitentiary serving as a model for the family and the school.
    • The assumption of rehabilitation was that people were not permanently criminal and that it was possible to restore a criminal to a useful life in which they could contribute to themselves and to society.
    • In England and Europe, mental illness came to be viewed as a disorder that required compassionate treatment to aid in the rehabilitation of the victim.