Risk and Criminology
Critical Reflections on Risk and Human Security: Towards a Holistic Approach, pp. 43-59, G. Mythen, S. Walklate, eds., McGraw-Hill/Open University Press: London, 2006
30 Pages Posted: 17 Sep 2009
Date Written: September 14, 2009
Abstract
While risk has only recently become a significant topic in criminology, risk techniques have been penetrating criminal justice since the 1970's, and have roots going back as far as the 1930's. This paper examines the development of risk in this domain, and suggests that the directions taken by risk technologies, as well as their prominence and centrality in justice, is highly variable and unpredictable. Accordingly, while it is possible to see risk currently and increasingly being applied to areas as diverse as police work, sentencing and crime prevention, it should not be assumed that there is an inevitable march of risk to dominance. There are serious obstacles to risk’s spread, ranging from judicial resistance through popular punitiveness, as well as the persistence of welfare state professional knowledges and orientation that have already modified and diluted the place of risk in significant ways.
Keywords: risk, security, uncertainty, justice, criminology, governmentality
JEL Classification: K10, K14, K30
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation