NCJ Number
104584
Editor(s)
F N Dutile,
C H Foust
Date Published
1987
Length
256 pages
Annotation
Seventeen papers on the prediction of criminal violence committed by adults and juveniles consider prediction reliability and validity, its uses and abuses, restrictions on its use, and guidelines for prediction in specific criminal justice decisionmaking arenas.
Abstract
Predictions on the future behavior of an accused person are made by criminal justice officials at many points of criminal case processing: by the police at arrest, by the prosecutor in charging the crime, by the judge in sentencing, and by parole and corrections officials. Articles pertaining to the prediction of violence committed by adults consider such issues as the legal and ethical limits for prediction; statistical and clinical prediction techniques; prosecutorial diversion; pretrial release and sentencing predictions; and predictions in decisions pertaining to probation, parole, and minimum security. Articles on the prediction of violence committed by juveniles address prediction accuracy, diversion techniques, pretrial decisions, and case dispositions. The articles generally note the inevitability of behavioral predictions in criminal justice decisionmaking, the significant error rate in even the most scientific of predictions, the need for additional research to improve prediction techniques, and the need for guidelines which prevent an undue reliance on prediction when a person's liberty is at stake. Chapter footnotes.