TIL that due to a clerical error, the state of Missouri assumed that a man named Mike Anderson was in prison, serving his 13-year sentence for armed robbery. It's only when they began preparing for his release did they realise that law-enforcement had forgotten to take him to jail.

Also, a lot of people are resistant to rehabitstiom because they're unwilling or unable to accept that they have a lot problem. You can't rehabilitate a person who thinks they're being forces into counseling for a bullshit reason. The Louis Theroux documentary, "A Place for Paedophiles" illustrates this pretty clearly. After they complete their sentence, violent inmates convicted of a sexual assault like rape and/or grooming, pedophilia and rape against a minor who have been diagnoses to with a psychosexual disorder are transferred to the facility Theroux goes to. (The ethics of holding them in a prison/hospital after they've served their sentence is a whole other bag of cats although I don't lose sleep about a bunch of rapists and pedophiles kept off the street for even longer, honestly.) The therapy (group and individual) and rehabilitation is entirely voluntary and even though completing the program is virtually the only chance of facing release, 70% of inmates/patients opt out of the program. They don't believe they have a problem and therefore, refuse help. Hell, even some people already participating in the program to satisfy the requirements believe they don't have a problem and they won't benefit as much as a person is go recognizes that what they did was atrocious and they need to take the rehabilitation seriously. One guy who was in the process of being released (but understandably couldn't find a landlord willing to house him due to his pedophilia convictions and had applied to over 1,000 housing situations in a 9 month period (the amount of time he'd been approved for release) and, during his rehab, had voluntarily undergone physical castration because he didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. So rehabilitation can benefit some, but not all.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - thisamericanlife.org