If we can't handle them, then we aren't prepared to handle much of anything. The Wilson-Petersilia book never states it that clearly but hardly refutes the characterization. Bidinotto claims that the fundamental error of the social science establishment stems from its embrace of the philosophical doctrine of determinism, the idea that there is only one possible action for an individual at each moment, the net result of all the causes operating up to that moment. In truth, organisms are purposeful. They are goal- directed.
Humans have the additional capacity to think and direct their awareness.
Acting in accord with our nature as reasoning organisms, we initiate actions in pursuit of our purposes and therefore we are causes, not just effects. To treat criminals as if they don't act purposefully, continually accepting or rejecting courses of action, implicitly ignores their humanity, and therefore the source of their criminality. This is a scientific approach to human behavior and, rather than violating the law of causality, it accurately diagnoses the nature of things. The old assumption that science is a witness against free will turns out to be false. Human beings turn out to be far more complicated than determinists believe, and that explains why the correlates with criminality are so loose and will always be so.