RT Article
T1 Individualizing risk: moral judgement, professional knowledge and affect in parole evaluations
JF The British journal of criminology
VO 57
IS 4
SP 808
OP 827
A1 Werther, Robert
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1565025342
AB Drawing from an ethnographic project within the California (USA) parole system, this article traces how field personnel evaluate individuals and attempt to anticipate future conduct. It troubles claims that risk has replaced dangerousness and deindividualized penal subjects. In this setting, rather than displaying a technocratic character, the evaluation of risk is highly individualizing and impressionistic. Individuals contingently assemble knowledges, devalue actuarial tools and privilege their experiential expertise, affect and the moral judgement of personhood. Even among those classified as ‘serious’ offenders, evaluation operates as a space for judging the potential danger of specific individuals. This is reflective, in part, of field personnel’s efforts to protect their professional standing in the face of the parole agency’s promotion of risk technologies.
K1 Risk
K1 Parole
K1 Punishment
K1 Assessment
K1 Prisoner re-entry
K1 Risiko
K1 Gefährlickeit
DO 10.1093/bjc/azw025