Though the information can be used for policy advocacy, allowing social workers to lend their voices to those clamoring for greater attention to education and early prevention programs, the bulk of the article's information concerns hoped-for and suggested programs that are as of now not implemented, and the information covers many instances in which the social worker's hands would be legally tied in terms of seeking alternatives to imprisonment without the legislative changes suggested in the article. Still, this information can be used in a general way for viewing some common issues encountered by social workers in their practice, including the encouragement of seeking out and joining education and prevention programs for at-risk individuals and families on a voluntary basis and equipping the social worker with a better...

This debate has waged back and forth for decades, of course, if not centuries, and it is amazing that short-term financial incentives keep winning out despite overwhelming evidence as to the inadequacy of current programs and institutions. One wonders if there are other countries and/or states that have implemented programs more along the lines of those suggested by the authors over a long period of time (at least a generation or two), and what the results have been on criminality.