In this eye-opening critique, Ronald Kramer and James C. Oleson interrogate the promises of crime science and target our misplaced faith in technology as the solution to criminality. This book deconstructs crime science's most prominent manifestations—biological, actuarial, security, and environmental sciences. Rather than holding the technological keys to crime's resolution, crime sciences inscribe criminality on particular bodies and constitute a primary resource for the conceptualization of crime that many societies take for granted. Crime science may strive to reduce crime, but in doing so, it reproduces power asymmetries, creates profit motives, undermines important legal concepts, instantiates questionable practices, and forces open new vistas of deviant activity.
"A compelling and original critique of our newest form of criminological science ideology."—Jonathan Simon, author of Governing through Crime
"A most welcome disruption of the incantations of crime science! Kramer and Oleson show how contemporary investments in suppressive technologies are ill-founded and highly selective in the forms of harm they aim to neutralize. A passionate engagement with the injustices nurtured by technological crime control fantasies."—Nicolas Carrier, Carleton University
