Treatment and The Sex Offender by Brent M. Pergram, Masters of Arts in Sociology The Martinson Report of the early 1970’s, said that rehabilitative efforts or treatment programs in general had failed to reduce recidivism. The Report led those in control of government and the criminal justice system to say that rehabilitation does not work, and therefore focus on deterrence and punishment of offenders. Martinson’s study of 231 treatment studies measured offender improvement in various areas, but recidivism is the issue here. Martinson says “With few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on rec