NCJ Number
215222
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice Volume: 48 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2006 Pages: 423-434
Date Published
June 2006
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This paper critically examines risk-based approaches to security threats.
Abstract
It suggests some ways of distinguishing between different categories of risk and questions whether the distinction between risk assessment and risk management in the security field can be drawn. Given the difficulties posed by placing risk at the top of the government's policy agenda, this article explores some alternative intellectual resources with which to play the risk game. Drawing on behavioral economics, international relations, environmental law, and political science, it offers insights that might warrant attention from criminologists. Given that risks cannot be identified or predicted with scientific certainty, allegations of such certainty by government officials must be viewed as political issues and not just factual issues. Also, given that risks are not subject to scientific calculation, psychological factors are influential in determining the acceptability of risk in different circumstances. Further, there are cultural variations in the assessment and the acceptability of risk that apply from one setting to another. What is deemed a warranted and acceptable intrusion into the privacy of the person and the body in one cultural setting may be offensive and unacceptable in another. These various subjective factors that determine the appraisal of risk and acceptability of risk management policies, together with the impossibility of scientific certainty in predicting the occurrence and nature of a harmful event, may fuel objections to exceptional measures based on assessments of extraordinary threats. There may be ethical objections based on the values of fairness and justice, as well as political objections that emergency powers tend to be extended beyond the emergency to become normalized. Pre-emptive action against an assessed threat has the potential to set a precedent toward ever earlier and more intrusive measures. 22 references