Citation

O'Malley P. Aust. N. Zeal. J. Criminol. 2004; 37(3): 323-343.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1375/acri.37.3.323

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Conventional debates over risk in criminal justice (and more generally) tend to fall into several traps. These include the assumption that diverse configurations of risk can be collapsed into a single category, to be contrasted en bloc with other approaches to government. However, by attending to the diversity of forms of risk we can begin to develop certain principles that could be put forward as tools for thinking about the promise and limitations of ways of governing by risk. Through contrasting actuarial justice with a number of other configurations of risk-centred government, such relevant issues emerge as whether specific techniques of risk are inclusive or exclusionary, whether they set up a zero-sum game between victims and offenders, and whether they polarise risk and uncertainty. While this is promising, the paper also concludes that a democratic politics of security may provide more promise than a politics of risk per se.