Editorial: Is an Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Treatment?

• Author: George B. Palermo
• Published date: 01 February 2000
• Date: 01 February 2000
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X00441001
• Subject Matter: Editorial

InternationalJournalofOffenderTherapy and Comparative Criminology

Editorial

Editorial: Is an Ounce of Prevention

Worth a Pound of Treatment?

George B. Palermo

The continuous building of new jails—and especially maximum security pris-

ons—in the United States reflects the high level of criminality in the nation and

people’s fears. The number of offenders is undoubtedly evenhigher than the 1.8

million who are reported to be in U.S. jails and prisons if one takes into considera-

tion the many unreported offenses. This is an incredible number, forming a large

community of deviants, the largest in the world, in spite of the increase in more

effective methods of crime deterrence. The growth of correctional institutions

seemstobeincessant,andabusinesshasbeenmadeofthesocialsadnessthatjails

and prisons represent. However,there are criminals and criminals: the adolescent

offenders, the large cohort of mentally ill offenders,the callous criminals, and the

many lost souls in the large cauldron of drug and alcohol dependence. It is a fact

that all of them broke the law, but they did so for different reasons.

Young offenders often do not have enough schooling, do not have essential

supervision by their parents, try to emulate gang members to obtain, foolishly, a

certain ego-identity and, as they say, to prevent the dis—the disrespect of which

they believe themselves to be the object. They need attention, supervision, a

home, and, often in special cases, they need a period of time in jail or prison. The

mentally ill are frequently jailed for misdemeanors, at times for bizarre felonies,

and occasionally for more severe violent and destructivebehavior. Except for the

criminal paranoids, these people need not a jail or prison but a mental hospital for

treatment. There is then the large cohort of defendants, users of various illicit

drugs, who are entrapped by a fleeting nirvana in an attempt to escape the sadness

oftheirlives:poor education, poor role models, inabilitytoadapttosocialconven-

tions, anger, rebelliousness, lack of skills to make them employable, and/or

poorly paid jobs. These people, too, are often led to crime and incarcerated

because they find themselves on the margins of mainstream society. Last, there

are the callous criminals, the psychopaths of Lombroso and Cleckley, those who

are antisocial, dyssocial recidivistic offenders. These people need to be incarcer-

ated and, when possible, rehabilitated because they are a menace to all of us.

Thus, there are different types of criminals with differentbackgrounds and dif-

ferentmotivationsfor their criminal actions—and because of this,eachtypeneeds

a different approach. The adolescent needs a family,role models, education, and

help in building a moral character, as Socrates and Plato once said. The mentally

International Journal of Offender Therapy and ComparativeCriminology, 44(1), 2000 5-7

2000 Sage Publications, Inc.

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