Actuarialism In The Criminal Justice System Essay

Since the mid twentieth century the ideologies behind justice and punishment have been evolving. There has been a shift from the old penology, which focused on the individual offender, to a new penology which focuses on identifying and managing groups of people who are considered to be the most likely to re-offend. Actuarialism is part of the new penology and is an algorithm that has been used to predict which group of people or which group traits are most likely to lead to persistent offending. The practice of actuarialism with in the criminal justice system has gained increasing influence in regards to sentencing and when granting parole. Actuarialism has resulted in the use of racial profiling among police officers and has replaced rehabilitation methods with selective …show more content…
Thus, actuarialism has furthered the institutionalization of racism in society and supports long term imprisonment over rehabilitation. If society is able to predict which groups of people are more likely offend or reoffend, then intervention programs should be put in place instead of increasing the punishment and encouraging racism. High rates of crime in a particular area or among certain groups of people is often the result of a larger structural problem in society. Our society needs to try and remedy these structural issues instead of punishing those that are the victims of circumstance The use of risk assessments in the criminal justice system has been steadily increasing over the past 50 years. In the article, Against prediction: profiling, policing, and punishing in an actuarial age by Bernard Harcourt, the evolution and the validity of actuarialsim is scrutinized. He discusses the increasing use of acturarial evdicence when regarding the sentencing for offenders and when making decisions about parole. For the purpose of this paper I will discuss two aspects that have been influenced by actuarialism and have