Most experts state that crime prevention through social development involves "addressing the social and economic conditions that breed crime". They then assume that the way to do this is by "interventions targeted to certain sectors of society which are not only disadvantaged socio-economically but are also living through experiences that make a career of persistent crime a possibility".

Four difficulties with a policy of identifying and treating persons at high risk of becoming frequent and serious offenders.

1. You can't force treatment on people just because they have a statistically high probability of becoming offenders.
2. Not all persons identified early as being "at risk" are going to go on to become a danger to society so you will be spending resources needlessly, even if you can get them into treatment.
3. There will never be enough resources to treat all those identified early as being "at risk".
4. Early treatment frequently is not effective.

1. It makes everyone feel that something is being done about the problem of crime.
2. It provides lots of jobs in the "Five major industries....strategically entrenched around the problem".
3. It reinforces our much needed delusion that bad (sick) people are different from us good (healthy) people.
4. It protects us from the untenable thought that we might be part of the problem and that we might have to alter some of our most cherished beliefs.

The righteous is not innocent in the deeds of the wicked. And the white hand is not clean in the doings of the felon. Yea, the guilty is often the victim of the injured and still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed. Kahlil Gibran