This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Knepper, P. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Crime Prevention in a Multinational Open Society

University of Sheffield

The interest in crime prevention on the part of international organizations raises important questions about the usefulness of criminological knowledge in the policy-making context. Two models can be identified: the evidence-based model, advocated by the Campbell Collaboration, and the reflexive model, envisioned by George Soros’s Open Society foundations network. Although both models reference ideas of Karl Popper, neither makes full use of his social philosophy. Popper has more to offer criminology than the idea of falsification. His concepts of social situation, social tinkering, and open society emphasize the important methodological principle of learning from mistakes. If policy makers, and the criminologists who hope to advise them, are interested in pursuing crime prevention within a multinational open society, they should take into account the self-organizing aspect of science, the normality of accidents in social affairs, and the politics of social science research.

Key Words: crime prevention • evidence based • reflexivity • Karl Popper • open society

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?