A Message from the Editor-in-Chief

• Date: 01 January 2017
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16681092
• Author: Mark T. Palermo
• Subject Matter: Editorial

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2017, Vol. 61(1) 3 –5

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X16681092

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Editorial

A Message from the

Editor-in-Chief

The International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology

(IJOTCC) was founded in 1957 by Melitta Schmideberg, Melanie Klein’s only daugh-

ter. The year 2017 marks the 70th anniversary since its first appearance in the form of

a newsletter. As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Schmideberg was cognizant of the

importance of early experience in the genesis of behavior, and decided to focus on

juvenile offenders, even prior to the birth of the Journal.

It is an honor and a privilege, on this anniversary, to continue in this work of study

and research, and to take over the responsibility held for the past two decades by Dr.

George B. Palermo. It is also a challenge, yet a very welcome one.

Deviant behavior, in its many shapes and forms, seems to have quite a following

and as always, attracts much attention. The plethora of media and “entertainment”

devoted to evil and bad deeds would suggest that humans enjoy morbid phenomena.

Likewise, the success of retaliatory discourse disseminated in the news, the pervasive

anger and the vindictive rhetoric we are subjected to daily, in one form or another, are

evidence of a diffuse and global climate of irritability and dangerous social inflamma-

tion, a global “social” warming of sorts.

It is worrisome that children, globally, are passively fed anger in the form of irate

cartoon characters, and rather than being out in the world of childhood and youth,

playing countless hours with violent video games—called entertainment—a form of

virtual violence yet not without real after-effects. Increasingly, and at a younger and

younger age, youth join and practice violent contact sports, such as so-called mixed

martial arts, a form of combat disengaged from any value system whatsoever, differing

from other more traditional disciplines in light of the absence of goals that transcend

the aggressive experience implicit in a contact sport. Hoolinganism is pervasive and

extremism is on the rise. Numerous areas of the world are chronically devastated by

war, leading to population movements furthering social tension. This global climate of

anger is easily manipulated through information, the most precious immaterial com-

modity, and directed toward political agendas of whichever side.

Criminology is no exception. As a systematic study of multifactorial and socially

relevant behaviors, it cannot avoid the influence of social and political phenomena, as

well as neuroscientific advances. Yet, in spite of contemporary neo-positivist and

Corresponding Author:

Mark T. Palermo, Via Chiana 35, 00198 Rome, Italy.

Email: mt.palermo@lawandbehavior.org

681092IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X16681092International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyPalermo

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