ABSTRACT
The notion that most lawbreakers are suffering from mental illness—else why should they transgress?—took hold among the prison people at a surprisingly early date, long before psychiatric explanations for all manner of human behavior became fashionable. However, the mental illness theory of criminality and its concomitant, individualized treatment for offenders, find instant favor with all sorts of unlikely bedfellows: liberal reformers, prison administrators, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and those indefatigable experimenters, the “behavior modification” experts. It is widely acknowledged in penological circles that the California prison system lights the way for the rest of the country—and perhaps the world—in its espousal of the treatment philosophy. There is little wonder that the initial optimism of those on the receiving end of treatment has seeped away over the past two decades. As the treatment begins to take effect, Dr. Watkins continues, the solid gradually moves away from the convict culture.
