ABSTRACT
Peter Greenwood has, once again, done us all a great service by making a bold, "back of the envelope" calculation. This time he has compared the crime reduction cost-effectiveness of longer prison terms with a variety of early intervention, crime-prevention programs. The real value of Greenwood's calculation lies not in the reliability of his estimates of the crime-reduction effectiveness of the different interventions or in the precision of his cost estimates. The difficulty with this position, however, is sort of utilitarian calculation is only one of the ways in which society might choose to look at the problem of crime and make normative judgments about what should best be done to deal with it. Many deplore the fact that the political discussion about crime is approached in terms of "retribution" and justice. Proposals to shift from retributivist to preventive approaches to crime also face difficulties when we consider the required operational capabilities.
