Prediction in Criminology is the first book to bring together a wide variety of articles on prediction research in criminology. It stresses not only substantive findings but also the methodology of prediction research, and demonstrates how similar issues arise in many applications: problems of research design, the choice of predictor and criterion variables, methods of selecting and combining variables into a prediction instrument, measures of predictive efficiency, and external validity or generalizability. The collection includes research from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain and will be of interest to an international audience of policy makers, practitioners, academics, and researchers.

Prediction in Criminology is the first book to bring together a wide variety of articles on prediction research in criminology. It stresses not only substantive findings but also the methodology of prediction research, and demonstrates how similar issues arise in many applications: problems of research design, the choice of predictor and criterion variables, methods of selecting and combining variables into a prediction instrument, measures of predictive efficiency, and external validity or generalizability. The collection includes research from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain and will be of interest to an international audience of policy makers, practitioners, academics, and researchers.

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.

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.

Criminal Recidivism intends to fill a gap in the criminological psychology literature by examining the processes underlying persistent criminal careers. This book aims to investigate criminal recidivism, and why, how and for how long an individual continues to commit crimes, whilst also reviewing knowledge about risk assessment and the role of psychopathy (including neurocriminological factors) in encouraging recidivism. It also focuses on the recidivism of sex offenders and on what works in reducing reoffending. At an empirical level, this book attempts to explain criminal persistence and recidivism using longitudinal data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD). At a psycho-criminological level it joins together quantitative and qualitative analyses, making its content a practical guide to explain, predict, and intervene to reduce the risk of criminal recidivism. The authors present quantitative analyses of criminal careers, as well as qualitative life histories of chronic offenders, in order to bring home the reality and consequences of a life of crime. The book is aimed not only at advanced students and academics in psychology, criminology, probation studies, social sciences, psychiatry, sociology, political science, and penology, but also at decision makers, policy officials, and practitioners within the realm of crime intervention and prevention, and also at forensic experts, judges and lawyers.