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The Effects of the Criminal Justice System on the Control of Crime: A Quantitative Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Shlomo Shinnar  and
Reuel Shinnar
Shlomo Shinnar
Affiliation:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Reuel Shinnar
Affiliation:
School of Engineering, The City College of New York
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Crime and its prevention has become a much debated issue. Claims and counter claims are made as to the real extent and the possibility of controlling crime. Law makers are considering legislating heavier sentences, which raises questions about the role of prison sentences in crime prevention. Most discussions of crime and its prevention lack a way of generating quantitative estimates of what alternative policies would achieve and what they would cost. A recent paper by one of the authors (Avi-Itzhak and Shinnar, 1973) attempts to develop a mathematical model simple enough to make approximate quantitative estimates based on available statistical information. In this paper we try to simplify the model further and to present it in a way that will make it more accessible to the policy maker and social scientist. We also try to apply it to conditions in New York.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Summer 1975 , pp. 581 - 611
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

*

The authors are indebted to Professor Al Madansky from the University of Chicago, Professor Al Blumstein from Carnegie Mellon, as well as to Dr. R. Conger for many helpful comments. Part of the research was supported by a grant from the Sloan foundation.

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