Goudsmit discusses the special difficulties as well as the potentials of offering psychoanalytic treatment to those who have been imprisoned for committing major crimes. He evaluates the relevant literature on the basis of his own experience in the Dutch penal system. While Goudsmit emphasizes the psychological requirements of convicts and therapists if treatment is to succeed, he does not neglect formulating the necessary institutional conditions which would make such experiments meaningful. Such conditions prevail in very few institutions today.