Robert Martinson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Martinson
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Freedom Rider mugshot from 1961
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| Born | May 19, 1927 |
| Died | August 11, 1979 (aged 52) |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley. B.A., M.A., Ph.D. |
| Occupation | Criminologist |
| Known for | "Nothing works" doctrine regarding prisoner rehabilitation |
| Spouse(s) |
Rita J. Carter
(m. 1961) |
Robert Magnus Martinson (May 19, 1927 – August 11, 1979) was an American expert who studied how society works. He was known for his important study in 1974 called "What Works?". This study looked at programs meant to help people who had been in prison. His work became famous for the idea that "nothing works" when it came to helping prisoners change. Later, his ideas became more hopeful, but they were not as well-known at the time. He led the Sociology Department at the City College of New York. He also started a center to plan how to improve the justice system.
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Who Was Robert Martinson?
Robert Martinson was an important thinker who studied how people behave in groups and how the justice system works. He was born in 1927 and lived until 1979. His ideas changed how many people thought about helping prisoners.
Early Life and Education
Robert Martinson was born on May 19, 1927, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His parents were Magnus Constantine Martinson and Gwendolyn A. Gagnon. He went to the University of California, Berkeley. There, he earned three degrees: a bachelor's degree in 1949, a master's degree in 1953, and a PhD in 1968.
A Fight for Civil Rights
In 1961, Martinson became a Freedom Rider. This was a group of brave people who rode buses into the southern United States. They wanted to challenge unfair laws that separated people based on their race. Robert Martinson spent over a month in two jails in Mississippi because of his actions. He wrote about his experiences in a magazine called The Nation. Being in jail made him very interested in how prisons work and how they affect people.
He married Rita J. Carter on September 18, 1961. They were married in San Francisco, California.
What Was the "Nothing Works" Idea?
In 1966, Robert Martinson and his team, Douglas Lipton and Judith Wilks, started a big study. They looked at 231 earlier studies about helping people in prison. These studies were from 1945 to 1967. Their first report was finished in 1970. At first, the government did not want to release the report because of what it said. But later, it became public after a court case.
Martinson's study suggested that many programs designed to help prisoners change their lives were not working well. He became a public figure because of this. He was interviewed by People magazine and appeared on the TV show 60 Minutes. On the show, he famously said that "nothing works" when it came to helping people in prison.
What Happened Next?
Many politicians liked Martinson's idea. It led to new laws that gave tougher sentences to people who committed crimes. It also caused many programs that helped prisoners to be stopped. However, other experts who studied society strongly disagreed with his findings. They said his study looked at programs that did not have enough money or trained staff.
Martinson's Later Views
Later in his life, Robert Martinson actually changed his mind. He became more hopeful about the idea of helping people in prison. But his first, more famous idea, "nothing works," was already very well-known. Robert Martinson passed away on August 11, 1979.
