This is an introduction to the techniques of predicting criminal behaviour, and the ethical and practical issues surrounding them. It discusses the use of prediction in bail, sentencing, and parole decisions, as well as in the allocation of treatments to offenders and presents a typology of predictive approaches. This typology serves as the framework for a discussion of the various predictive factors, including sex, race and ethnicity, age, personality and intelligence, socio-economic status, criminal history, institutional adjustment, drug and alcohol use, etc. Issues of variable measurement and sampling are reviewed, as are some of the statistical methods used to predict criminality, including the Burgess Method, predictive attributive analysis, multiple regression, multidiscriminant analysis, and log-linear techniques. The book concludes with an evaluation of the potential value of statistical predictions.

From random security checks at airports to the use of risk assessment in sentencing, actuarial methods are being used more than ever to determine whom law enforcement officials target and punish. And with the exception of racial profiling on our highways and streets, most people favor these methods because they believe they’re a more cost-effective way to fight crime. In Against Prediction, Bernard E. Harcourt challenges this growing reliance on actuarial methods. These prediction tools, he demonstrates, may in fact increase the overall amount of crime in society, depending on the relative responsiveness of the profiled populations to heightened security. They may also aggravate the difficulties that minorities already have obtaining work, education, and a better quality of life—thus perpetuating the pattern of criminal behavior. Ultimately, Harcourt shows how the perceived success of actuarial methods has begun to distort our very conception of just punishment and to obscure alternate visions of social order. In place of the actuarial, he proposes instead a turn to randomization in punishment and policing. The presumption, Harcourt concludes, should be against prediction.

Exploiting our boundless desire to access everything all the time, digital technology is breaking down whatever boundaries still exist between the state, the market, and the private realm. Bernard Harcourt offers a powerful critique of what he calls the expository society, revealing just how unfree we are becoming and how little we seem to care.

The Encyclopedia of RESEARCH METHODS IN CRIMINOLOGY & CRIMINAL JUSTICE The most comprehensive reference work on research designs and methods in criminology and criminal justice This Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice offers a comprehensive survey of research methodologies and statistical techniques that are popular in criminology and criminal justice systems across the globe. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in the field, it offers a clear insight into the techniques that are currently in use to answer the pressing questions in criminology and criminal justice. The Encyclopedia contains essential information from a diverse pool of authors about research designs grounded in both qualitative and quantitative approaches. It includes information on popular datasets and leading resources of government statistics. In addition, the contributors cover a wide range of topics such as: the most current research on the link between guns and crime, rational choice theory, and the use of technology like geospatial mapping as a crime reduction tool. This invaluable reference work: Offers a comprehensive survey of international research designs, methods, and statistical techniques Includes contributions from leading figures in the field Contains data on criminology and criminal justice from Cambridge to Chicago Presents information on capital punishment, domestic violence, crime science, and much more Helps us to better understand, explain, and prevent crime Written for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers, The Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice is the first reference work of its kind to offer a comprehensive review of this important topic.