Three decades ago, criminologists, policymakers, and criminal justice professionals widely decried the failure of rehabilitative efforts to reduce recidivism among criminal offenders. This “nothing works” attitude permeated the field and ideology of criminal justice and a period of punitive justice grounded in the desire for retribution was ushered in. The author describes how the efforts of a small and loosely bound group of criminological researchers proved through empirical research that treatment programs grounded within solid criminological research could indeed reduce recidivism among criminal offenders. The author reviews the specific contribution of each researcher considered. This group of researchers agreed that the popular punitive interventions were ineffective at rehabilitating offenders and pointed out that rehabilitation programs based on scientific evidence could make a difference in terms of altering criminal behavior patterns. Thus the importance of criminological research in making valuable contributions to the correctional industry and beyond has been solidly illustrated. Footnotes, references