Book Review: Imaginative Programing in Probation and Parole

The tactics and policies of criminal courts and penologists are now approaching Robert Frost\u27s two roads diverging in a yellow wood. Like Frost\u27s lone traveler, society must choose which road to take: the well-traveled one or the newly-charted one. Paul W. Keve, Director of Court Services in Minneapolis, has become a pace-setter in the use of probation and parole by choosing the latter course. For first offenders and one-time repeaters Keve substitutes a restrained but flexible leniency for a rigid strictness; individual attention for an impersonal assemblyline procedure; and positive stimuli for punitive measures. Using counseling (by caseworkers), group sessions, and halfway houses, Keve has enabled a high percentage of probationers and parolees to rehabilitate themselves. The author emphasizes that reformation, rather than punishment, is always his primary goal. Keve\u27s approach may at first seem idealistic, but after he presents numerous examples illustrating the effectiveness of therapeutic justice, one concludes that it is only his hope for sufficient funds, adequate staff, and community support that is idealistic