Deterrence in Criminology and Social Policy (From Behavioral and Social Science - Fifty Years of Discovery, P 129-152, 1985, Neil J Smelser and Dean R Gerstein, eds.)

• NCJ Number: 100025
• Author(s): H L Ross; G D Lafree
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: National Academies Press
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The 10 papers in this volume focus on 3 themes: advances in theories and methods for examining social, organizational, and economic change since the Hoover era; increasing use of quantitative concepts and data in decisionmaking; and the remarkable growth of research in cognition and behavior.

Abstract

Inspiration for this collection and a related Inspiration for this collection and a related conference came from the 1933 report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends, known informally as the Ogdon report. The opening paper compares the assumptions of this report about the relation between social science and society with present-day assumptions. Other papers on change address measures of social change, innovations in organizational research, and macroeconomic models and forecasts. The next group of authors focuses on numbers and decisionmaking, including the role of statistical enterprise in electoral accountability, political agenda-setting, public resource allocation. Other areas addressed are the power and limits of induced change, as exemplified by formal criminal justice operations to deter street crime and drunk driving, and the influence of attitudes toward risk-taking on individual decisions. In the area of research on cognition and behavior, papers address the fields of child development, language behavior, and visual perception of real and represented objects. Footnotes and references.