The rehabilitative ideal sees offenders as patients requiring treatment for their aberrance. Sentencing involves assessing the underlying disorders which precipitate criminal acts and introducing a therapeutic process through which offenders can be treated. This ideal has generally caused jurisdictions to move away from imposing determinate sentences. The just desert model reaffirms the aims of punishment, calling for penal institutions to be more secure to protect the public and safer for inmates. Proponents of this model seriously question the wisdom of indeterminate sentences. Conditions that promote rehabilitation include discipline in penal institutions, practical routines for inmate activities, sufficiently refined and accurate offender classification, a commitment by both management and staff to rehabilitate, and adequate resources. Conditions that inhibit rehabilitation deal with overcrowding, the prominence of gangs in prisons, and wrong attitudes and expectations. Distinctive issues in the correctional systems of western and Asian countries are examined. 15 notes