"Evidence-based Crime Prevention" - Bedeutung, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer auf experimentelle Forschung gestützten Kriminalpräventionspolitik

Abstract

Experimental evaluations in crime prevention are analyzed. While the idea of "testing sanctions like pills" is taken from the medical arena, medical ethics have to be considered for criminology as well. The most important difference is though, medical interventions are usually designed to help the individual, criminal sanctions are in the first place for the benefit of others. In the discourse on medical research involving prisoners, state-induced pain of sanctions is often mistaken for an incurable disease. It is not acceptable to justify experimentation in the field of criminal law by expecting improvement of future policy. Looking at important experimental studies in the U.S.,the concept of 'evidence-based crime prevention' does not work. The law has no systematic way of including empirical evidence. This may not even be desirable, because the idea of effective prevention has no build-in humanism. To stuck to the status quo of intuitive crime prevention is unacceptable as well.