Predictive Sentencing addresses the role of risk assessment in contemporary sentencing practices. Predictive sentencing has become so deeply ingrained in Western criminal justice decision-making that despite early ethical discussions about selective incapacitation, it currently attracts little critique. Nor has it been subjected to a thorough normative and empirical scrutiny. This is problematic since much current policy and practice concerning risk predictions is inconsistent with mainstream theories of punishment. Moreover, predictive sentencing exacerbates discrimination and disparity in sentencing. Although structured risk assessments may have replaced 'gut feelings', and have now been systematically implemented in Western justice systems, the fundamental issues and questions that surround the use of risk assessment instruments at sentencing remain unresolved. This volume critically evaluates these issues and will be of great interest to scholars of criminal justice and criminology.

1. Introduction: Normative and Empirical Perspectives on Predictive Sentencing Jan W de Keijser, Julian V Roberts and Jesper Ryberg2. The Use of Risk Assessment in Sentencing Esther FJC van Ginneken3. Why Legal Philosophers (Including Retributivists) Should Be Less Resistant to Risk-Based Sentencing Douglas Husak4. Risk and Retribution: On the Possibility of Reconciling Considerations of Dangerousness and Desert Jesper Ryberg5. Is Preventive Detention Morally Worse than Quarantine? Th omas Douglas6. Against Incapacitative Punishment Zachary Hoskins7. A Defence of Modern Risk-Based Sentencing 7Christopher Slobogin8. Some Dilemmas of Indeterminate Sentences: Risk and Uncertainty, Dignity and Hope Andrew Ashworth and Lucia Zedner9. The Problematic Role of Prior Record Enhancements in Predictive Sentencing Julian V Roberts and Richard S Frase10. Unpacking Sentencing Algorithms: Risk, Racial Accountability and Data Harms Kelly Hannah-Moff at and Kelly Struthers Montford11. The Scientific Validity of Current Approaches to Violence and Criminal Risk Assessment Seena Fazel12. Risk Assessment at Sentencing: The Pennsylvania Experience Rhys Hester13. Predictive Sentencing: An Analysis of Public Views Jan W de Keijser and Sigrid GC van Wingerden14. Sentencing and Prediction: Old Wine in Old Bottles Michael Tonry