Critical Criminology 17(4)

Discounting Women: Context Matters in Risk and Need Assessment
Janet T. Davidson and Meda Chesney-Lind

Widely used risk/need assessment instruments assume that female offender risks for recidivism are essentially equivalent to those of male offenders. A look at the lives of female and male offenders reveals that there are important differences in the context of both offending and re-offending. This research draws on both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the effectiveness of a well known risk instrument to both predict recidivism and potentially direct intervention efforts. The results, particularly the in-depth interviews with offenders (both male and female) serving time on parole or felony probation reveal differences not detected by most contemporary risk and need assessment instruments. Ultimately, the gendered links among physical and sexual abuse, drugs, and crime are missed in risk and need assessments, thereby placing female offenders at risk for neglect and criminalization in an otherwise seemingly objective method of assessment.

The Value of Quantitative Analysis for a Critical Understanding of Crime and Society
Steven E. Barkan

The value of quantitative analysis for a critical understanding of crime and society has often been questioned. This paper joins the debate by reviewing quantitative evidence on key criminological topics: the causes of crime, public opinion on crime, and the operation and impact of the criminal justice system. This evidence highlights the importance of economic deprivation and racial prejudice and discrimination for understanding U.S. crime and justice and points to the ineffectiveness of the nation’s “get tough” approach to crime control. In these ways, quantitative analysis has already bolstered central propositions in critical criminology and promises to continue to do so.

Women’s Role in Serial Killing Teams: Reconstructing a Radical Feminist Perspective
Jennie Thompson & Suzanne Ricard

This article examines women’s roles in serial killing teams and reconsiders the traditional applications of radical feminist research on serial killers. These applications limit the utility of radical feminist theory for understanding female serial killers who kill in teams. An analysis of patriarchal power relations, which emphasizes the constitutive element of radical feminist theory, provides a useful framework to achieve insight into female serial killers who kill in teams. The advantage of this approach is demonstrated through three case studies of this type of female serial killer: Martha Beck, Myra Hindley, and Karla Homolka.

Methodology as a Knife Fight: The Process, Politics and Paradox of Evaluating Surveillance
Kevin D. Haggerty

This paper uses the analogy of an unregulated fight to examine the rhetorical politics of evaluation research pertaining to surveillance measures. It outlines how, in addition to being standard fare in social scientific debates, methodological issues have a parallel existence as part of the rhetorical politics of surveillance and crime control. After briefly sketching some of the ways that advocates try and accentuate methodological concerns in attempts to undermine the position of their adversary the paper considers how certain groups are comparatively advantaged and disadvantaged in such exchanges. The concluding section takes a larger view of these dynamics to address some of the risks inherent in engaging in this style of discursive politics.

Critical Criminology, December 2009: Volume 17, Issue 4