It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals.

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I think you're on the right track.

Take the average offender: Young, minority, poor family upbringing, little school, previous problems with the law, etc., etc.
So when you talk about rehabilitation, what are you saying???? That you'll put them back in the same circumstances that brought them to prison; back with their friends on the street??? How will this help?

Or perhaps you'll get them all training and jobs to support themselves and steer them away from needing crime to survive??? How likely do you think this might be in most states??? Most employers aren't interested.

I think, to be realistic, we need to look at and do something about the causes of crime...and approach it like normal human beings should. Until we do it's full prisons forever.

Agree. The only way a criminal rehabilitates, is through enacting that change within themselves. Some will redeem themselves, others never will.

Some, yes. But not many. I think most can be rehabilitated and we should put more effort into that.

As one who worked with D. O. C. Clients, both behind the walls and those in parole.

The "RE" is a key to my answer. Some inmates never were taught. In other words they weren't habilitated and therefore can't be rehabilitated.

I have also worked with their children. Some were the first in their family to graduate high school without
A. Going to jail
B. Got their girlfriend pregnant

Many have mental health issues as well as untreated Trauma based issues.

Me...Still too old to know it all

i think once someone has already committed a crime and been convicted, thinking in terms of rehabilitation doesn't really make sense, regardless if they can or can't be rehabilitated. prison isn't the place for that. it's punishment and "containment". i think it makes much more sense to think in terms of "giving them something to do" instead, and separating violent offenders (convicted for violent crimes, or who are violent in prison) from the rest of the inmates. in practice it can mean the same thing as "rehabilitation", but not always, and clear priorities can make a difference

the point is, if the "thing to do" in prison is to socialize with other prisoners, and not much else, then you already know what the outcome is going to be, and in most cases it totally defeats the purpose if the idea is to make society any safer. and the point with violent offenders is that they're not magically neutralized once they're in prison. they keep causing trouble and corrupting others by association or intimidation

If, how, what and why are all legitimate questions.
Here's an old look at this present question.
From West Side Story.

I wonder if you could supply us some information about what is meant (in terms used by the corrections departments?) by "rehabilitation."

If it's a simple matter of teaching them how to read or write, I'm OK with that. If teaching them a trade (in a "print" shop for example), is called "rehabilitation", then this certainly might help them stay out of trouble. But if we are supposed to believe these things alone will change the path of a violent offender, without extensive psychiatric rebuilding, then I'm skeptical of the motives of the correctional institution.

The main reason for this is the direction psychiatry has taken...away from one-on-one therapy, and instead to drugs to solve peoples problems.....I don't believe there is any way to force the released offender to continue taking the prescribed drugs, instead of the freely (as in easy to obtain if you've stolen the correct amount of money) available illicit drugs available in his old neighborhood from his old friends (and business partners). At least this is what I've observed. So I think this path little benefits the violent offender.

I'm not saying this to scrimp on pennies, because I believe a corrected life is of more benefit, and a lot less detriment, to society...probably up to hundreds of thousand of dollars each year, when the cost of the crime and the incarceration are considered).

The problem is, The Public (which includes all of us here) is not willing to entertain the kind of expense necessary to provide the type of psychiatric care these prisoners (the worst of the worst) need to correct their lives...after all it took a lifetime for them to get this way.

When our country spends untold billions of dollars to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people it's kind of hard to imagine them spending very much to save a few....politicians now are more like a bunch of homicidal maniacs than the people we have locked up.

Just sayin'.