Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-r5d9c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-24T17:07:39.999Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Elementary Epistemic Arithmetic of Criminal Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Larry Laudan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper propounds the following theses: 1). that the traditional focus on the Blackstone ratio of errors as a device for setting the criminal standard of proof is ill-conceived, 2). that the preoccupation with the rate of false convictions in criminal trials is myopic, and 3). that the key ratio of interest, in judging the political morality of a system of criminal justice, involves the relation between the risk that an innocent person runs of being falsely convicted of a serious crime and the risk of being criminally victimized by someone who was falsely acquitted.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 2008 , pp. 282 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Ron & Larry, Laudan. 2008. Forthcoming. “Deadly Dilemmas.” Texas Tech Law Review.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy. 1829/1843. Principles of Judicial Procedure. In Bowring, J. (ed.), The Works of Jeremy Bentham, pp. 1–188. Edinburgh: William Tait.Google Scholar
Blumstein, Alfred et al. 1986. Criminal Careers and “Career Criminals.” National Research Council.Google Scholar
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1995. Prison Sentences and Time Served.Google Scholar
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2008. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. http://www.albany.edu/sourcebookGoogle Scholar
Gross, Samuel R., Jacoby, Kristen, Matheson, Daniel J., Montgomery, Nicholas & Patil, Sujata. 2005. “Exonerations in the United States 1989 through 2003.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 95: 523–60.Google Scholar
Halliday, John et al. 2001. Making Punishments Work. The Home Office.Google Scholar
Koppel, Herbert. 1987. Lifetime Likelihood of Victimization. Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-10427.Google Scholar
Laudan, Larry. 2009. Forthcoming. “The Social Contract and the Rules of Trial: Re-Thinking Procedural Rules.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, M. A. & Braiker, H. B.. 1986. Doing Crime: A Survey of California Prison Inmates. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Tribe, Laurence H. 1971. “Trial by Mathematics: Precision and Ritual in the Legal Process.” Harvard Law Review 84: 1329–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar