| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,500,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The last two decades have seen a significant increase in the use of science and technology for the purposes of crime control. Such efforts have intensified post 9/11 as governments utilize technology as a key element of their counter-terrorism strategies. Examples include video and audio surveillance, heat, light, motion, sound and olfactory sensors, electronic, biometric access codes, drug testing, DNA analysis and the use of computer techniques such as expert systems, matching and profiling, data mining, mapping, network analysis, and simulation. This project examines these developments from a theoretical and comparative perspective, locating discussion of technology in the broader context of the transformation of penal modernity.
The primary goal of this use of IT is to eliminate or limit criminal violations by control of the physical and social environment. That is to say, there is a strong emphasis on prevention. Ideally problems are anticipated and simply designed away, or where t
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hat is not possible, the goal is to create deterrence by reducing the gain or increasing the likelihood of identification and apprehension. These techniques are not without practical and ethical difficulties, however. Technical efforts to insure conformity may be hindered by conflicting goals, unintended consequences, displacement, lessened equity, complacency, neutralization, invalidity, escalation, system overload, a negative image of personal dignity and the danger of the means determining, or becoming ends.
The most important finding of this study is the need to discuss the use of technology in the context of crime control more generally. That is to say, the various articles published at this stage of the study situate the use of technology in the context of more general developments in responding to crime, rather than focus only on technology. More specifically, the discussion of new technology should be connected to trends and values in contemporary crime control, such as populism and punitiveness. Less
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