Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2013
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199656769.003.0014
Abstract
This chapter identifies the origins of contemporary preventive endeavour in the work of the RAND Corporation in America, which developed highly technical studies of crime prevention based upon systems analysis. It suggests that RAND promoted a decidedly punitive style of prevention based upon policing and punishment that is replicated in modern ‘punitive preventive measures’. It criticizes these measures, emphasizing the perils they pose and the weakness of their empirical foundations. Most worryingly, these measures typically claim an apolitical, neutral emphasis on efficiency that fails to engage with the political values underlying them. In so doing, it tends to displace much needed political debate about their justifiability.
Disciplines
Criminal Law | Law | Law Enforcement and Corrections
Recommended Citation
Bernard E. Harcourt,
Punitive Preventive Justice: A Critique,
Prevention and the Limits of the Criminal Law, Andrew Ashworth, Lucia Zedner & Patrick Tomlin (Eds.), Oxford University Press
(2013).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1747