The Ratchet Effect: An Overlooked Social Cost
The Ratchet Effect: An Overlooked Social Cost
This chapter explains how the use of actuarial methods will have a distortive effect on the targeted population that will operate as a ratchet over time. The distortion occurs when profiling produces a supervised population that is disproportionate to the distribution of offending by racial group. The ratchet effect is discussed in the policing context, in the sentencing context, and in terms of social costs.
Keywords: actuarial methods, criminal profiling, targeted population, distortion, criminal supervision, racial group, policing, social costs, sentencing
Chicago Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.