[Evaluation of the penal treatment].

Abstract

Evaluative research in the penal field has had two main characteristics: first, there has been a pre-occupation with the objective of treatment to the almost complete exclusion of any other, and second, there has been a concern with the demonstration of effects without a corresponding attempt to understand the nature of the treatment process. This has been because the research has proceeded on an inappropriate "medical" view of penal treatment on which it is assumed that the "cure" of the offender is the major task and that the nature of treatment is relatively easy to understand. The main achievement of this research has been to show that, by and large, penal treatments differ very little in their capacity to reform. The importance of this result should not be underestimated. It has helped to bring about a changed view of delinquency and its treatment which in the long term will have far reaching effects on penal practice. In the shorter term the effects on evaluative research are likely to be two-fold. First it opens the way for evaluation to proceed on a wider front. Instead of needing to pay so much attention to reformative aspects, the researcher will be more free to compare penal measures with respect to such things as their economic and social costs, their cpacity for general deterrence, the protection afforded to the public from the activities of known criminals, and the extent to which they satisfy requirements of justice and humanity.