The paper attributes liberal elitism to a relatively small metropolitan elite of politicians, senior administrators, penal reformers, and academic criminologists who believed that governments ought to respond to crime in ways that preserve civilized values. This meant devising ways to control crime that did not involve public vengeance or the inhumane treatment of those who violated the law. Integrated with this strategy was belief in and commitment to the rehabilitative ideal, i.e., that the state owed it to offenders and to society to devise treatment methods that would guide offenders into law-abiding lives and make the public safer as well. This regime of "Platonic guardianship" was to be administered by trained and knowledgeable experts in the management and treatment of offenders. This paper explains how this "Platonic guardianship" in controlling crime and managing offenders eroded under a series of economic, social, and cultural transformations that occurred over the latter third of the 20th century. In the face of the fear and anxiety posed by crimes that are vividly portrayed by the media and under the public's recognition that habitual and dangerous offenders are beyond reform, the public wants assurance that dangerous and harmful criminal behaviors will be stopped by what ever means are effective. Reliance on rehabilitation is not credible for the majority of the public. Still, a key tenet of "Platonic guardianship" should be retained, i.e., protecting offenders and the public itself from an uncontrolled anger and passion for vengeance that can overwhelm the values of a liberal democracy. 81 references