ABSTRACT
In some individuals the symptoms of maladjustment might be so marked that the sociologist would concede importance of that factor; in others they might be so hard to detect that psychoanalyst would leave them to sociologist. In field of delinquency, explanations have undoubtedly been used to provide intellectual satisfaction. The point which is relevant here is that penologists are sometimes in danger of assuming that remedy for a social evil must consist of attacking the cause. Genetic studies suggest that eugenic measures would yield some benefit, though it is only in the rather specialised group of epileptic and psychotic offenders that the yield would be more than negligible. Relapse Prediction methods are fairly successful in predicting reconviction rates of sub-groups of known offenders to whom some form of penal treatment has been applied. A different sort of limitation arises from popular distrust of statistical methods of arriving at decisions, especially when these have important effects upon the lives of individuals.
