Abstract
During this century, correctional policy has swung dramatically from stark punitive control to rehabilitative "cure. " We have sought a 'just model"for corrections, and we have seen "experts" go on record that "nothing works. "In our search to find the approach that best facilitates adjustment by offendersthat engenders internalization of mainstream societal valueswe seem to have overlooked a medium that has proven itself over centuries of use: fairy tales. In Future Shock, Toffler asserted that "Education's prime objective must be to increase the individual's 'cope-ability'." To establish fairy tales as the missing "cope-ability" link, this article constructs three fundamental premises: (1) Fairy tales are compatible with criminological and correctional theory. (2) The therapeutic potential of the tales is real and accessible. (3) Fairy tales, which are often viewed as "children's stories, " are an appropriate vehicle for such a therapeutic endeavor, in terms of offenders'levels of cognition, moral reasoning, and psychological processing.
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