Hostname: page-component-784d4fb959-wvrvt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-16T03:39:17.421Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reader's Companion to Against Prediction: A Reply to Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir on Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, and Race

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Bernard E. Harcourt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

From parole prediction instruments and violent sexual predator scores to racial profiling on the highways, instruments to predict future dangerousness, drug-courier profiles, and IRS computer algorithms to detect tax evaders, the rise of actuarial methods in the field of crime and punishment presents a number of challenging issues at the intersection of economic theory, sociology, history, race studies, criminology, social theory, and law. The three review articles of Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age by Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir, raise these challenges in their very best light. Ranging from the heights of poststructuralist and critical race theory to the intricate details of mathematical economics and criminological analysis, the articles apply different disciplinary lenses to the analysis of the actuarial turn offered in Against Prediction and set forth both substantive and structural challenges to the book. By means of a detailed reply to the three reviews, this article provides a reader's companion to Against Prediction.

Information

Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , Winter 2008 , pp. 265 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2008 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Agamben, Giorgio. 1998. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Heller-Roazen, Daniel. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Tom, and Simon, Jonathan. 2002. Embracing Risk. In Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, ed. Baker, Tom and Simon, Jonathan, 1–25. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Ilan, Avner, and Sacerdote, Bruce. 2001. The Response to Fines and Probability of Detection in a Series of Experiments. Working Paper 8638, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Bjerk, David. Forthcoming. Racial Profiling, Statistical Discrimination, and the Effect of a Colorblind Policy on the Crime Rate. Journal of Public Economic Theory.Google Scholar
Blumkin, Tomer, and Margalioth, Yoram. 2006. Targeting the Majority: Redesigning Racial Profiling Rules. Yale Law & Policy Review 24:317–45.Google Scholar
Bruce, Andrew A., Burgess, Ernest W., and Harno, Albert M. 1928. A Study of the Indeterminate Sentence and Parole in the State of Illinois. Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 19 (1) Part II: 1–306 (May).Google Scholar
Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Collin, and Miller, Peter, eds. 1991. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Dominitz, Jeff, and Knowles, John. 2005. Crime Minimization and Racial Bias: What Can We Learn From Police Search Data? PIER Working Paper 05-019. http://ssrn.com/abstract=719981 (accessed October 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm M., and Simon, Jonathan. 1992. The New Penology: Notes on the Emerging Strategy of Corrections and Its Implications. Criminology, 30:449–74.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison [Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison]. Paris: Editions Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1997. Il faut défendre la société: Cours au Collège de France [Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France], (delivered 1976). Paris: Seuil/Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2004a. Sécurité, Territoire, Population: Cours au Collège de France [Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France], (delivered 1977–78). Paris: Seuil/Gallimard.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2004b. Naissance de la Biopolitique: Cours au Collège de France [The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France], (delivered 1978–1979). Paris: Seuil/Gallimard.Google Scholar
Gross, Ariela. 2008. History, Race, and Prediction: Comments on Harcourt's Against Prediction. Law & Social Inquiry 33 (1): 235–42.Google Scholar
Guinier, Lani, and Torres, Gerald. 2005. The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1990. The Taming of Chance. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Handbook for New Parole Board Members. 2003. Association of Paroling Authorities International and the National Institute of Corrections. http://www.apaintl.org/en/aw_publications.html (accessed October 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2003a. The Shaping of Chance: Actuarial Models and Criminal Profiling at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. University of Chicago Law Review 70:105–28.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2003b. From the Ne'er-Do-Well to the Criminal History Category: The Actuarial in Criminal Law. Law & Contemporary Problems 66:99–151.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2004. Rethinking Racial Profiling: A Critique of the Economics, Civil Liberties, and Constitutional Literature, and of Criminal Profiling More Generally. University of Chicago Law Review 71 (4): 1275–381.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2006a. Post-Modern Meditations on Punishment: On the Limits of Reason and the Virtues of Randomization (A Polemic and Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century). Journal of Social Research 74 (2): 307–46.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2006b. Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2007a. Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2007b. An Answer to the Question: “What Is Poststructuralism?” Public Law Working Paper 156, University of Chicago. http://ssrn.com/abstract=970348 (accessed October 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. 2007c. From the Asylum to the Prison: Rethinking the Incarceration Revolution—Part II: State Level Analysis. Olin Working Paper 335, University of Chicago Law & Economics. http://ssrn.com/abstract=970341 (accessed October 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Harcourt, Bernard, , E. Forthcoming. Muslim Profiles Post 9/11: Is Racial Profiling an Effective Counterterrorist Measure and Does It Violate the Right to be Free from Discrimination? In Security and Human Rights, ed. Goold, Benjamin and Lazarus, Liora. Oxford: Hart Publishing Google Scholar
Heaton, Paul. 2006. Understanding the Effects of Anti-Profiling Policies. Working paper, University of Chicago. http://home.uchicago.edu/~psheaton/workingpapers/racialprofiling.pdf (accessed March 2006).Google Scholar
Margalioth, Yoram. 2008. Looking at Prediction from an Economics Perspective: A Response to Harcourt's Against Prediction. Law & Social Inquiry 33 (1): 243–52.Google Scholar
Monahan, John, and Swanson, Jeffrey. 2007. The Challenge of Preventing Violence Is Not Just an American Problem. The Observer, Sunday, April 22.Google Scholar
Monahan, John, and Walker, Laurens. 2006. Social Science in Law: Cases and Materials. Westbury, CT: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
Persico, Nicola. 2002. Racial Profiling, Fairness, and Effectiveness of Policing. American Economic Review 92:1472–497.Google Scholar
Roberts, Dorothy E. 1999. Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order-Maintenance Policing. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 89:775–836.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 2002. At Risk of Madness. In Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility, ed. Baker, Tom and Simon, Jonathan, 209–37, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas, and Miller, Peter. 1992. Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government. British Journal of Sociology, 43 (2): 173–205.Google Scholar
Saleilles, Raymond. 1898. L'Individualisation de la peine: Étude de criminalité sociale [The Individualization of Punishment]. Paris: F. Alcan.Google Scholar
Sapir, Yoav. 2008. Against Prevention? A Response to Harcourt's Against Prediction on Actuarial and Clinical Predictions and the Faults of Incapacitation. Law & Social Inquiry 33 (1): 253–64.Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick. 2003. Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan. 1993. Poor Discipline. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Steiker, Carol S. 1997. Punishment Theory and the Criminal-Civil Procedural Divide. Georgetown Law Journal 85:775–819.Google Scholar
Travis, Jeremy. 2000. But They All Come Back: Rethinking Prisoner Reentry. Papers From the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, 7, Research in Brief, National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Vacheret, Marion, and Marie-Marthe, Cousineau. 2005. L’évaluation du risque de récidive au sein du systeme correctionel canadien: regards sur les limites d'un système [The evaluation of the risk of recidivism in the Canadian correctional system: looking at the limits of a system]. Déviance et Société 29 (4): 379–97.Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. 2007. Genealogies of European States: Foucauldian Reflections. Economy and Society 36 (1): 159–78.Google Scholar