Risk calculation and precautionary uncertainty: two configurations within crime assessment

Abstract: This paper explores two configurations of thinking about crime amongst law enforcement agencies and private sector security managers: 'risk calculation' (concerned with everyday, calculable probabilities and impacts and their management) and 'precautionary uncertainty' (concerned with events that might be incapacitating, yet are not calculable by probability assessments). The paper explores their respective constituent concepts and fields of application in crime assessment, drawing upon qualitative research-in-progress in Belgium. Risk calculation, as applied to crime, starts with past data on routines that link perpetrators with targets that lack capable guardians. Precautionary uncertainty focuses on potential impacts that are highly disabling and potentially wide-spreading (contagion, knock-on effects), asking how such impacts can be contained and recovered from. Risk and uncertainty are shown to be related to 'rational-instrumental' and 'deliberative-constitutive' approaches as

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Postprint ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Crime, Law and Social Change ; 55 (2011) 1 ; 15-31

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Soziale Probleme, Sozialdienste, Versicherungen

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2011
• Creator: Klima, Noel ; Dorn, Nicholas ; Vander Beken, Tom

Further information

• DOI: 10.1007/s10611-010-9265-2
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-279805
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:49 PM CET