Take Away the Causes

Ultimately the only solution to the problem of crime will come through a deeper understanding of what causes criminal behaviour and the removal of those causes. Even such steps as Playfair envisages are based to a large extent on individual insight, rather than on dispassionate scientific research. Only when society ceases to treat the crime problem as something to be ignored or treated instinctively will any real solution be reached. And that realisation will only come in the context of a wider, revolutionary, concept and restructuring of society.

The punitive Obsession is a book which provides much food for thought, but little in the way of solutions to the problem it so graphically depicts. In that respect it differs little from the many liberal "exposes" which proliferate in the book-publishing world. Perhaps it will provide the basis for some greater mind to take the step further to a solution.