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The centrality of risk assessment and risk management to complex organizations testifies to the institutionalization of risk in modern society. Much of the writing on risk assessment and management deals with how decision makers struggle with uncertainty rather than calculable risk. The conceptualization of risk and uncertainty depends in part upon whether one focuses upon decision makers and their decisions or upon outcomes of decisions. Focusing on decision makers leads to concern with risk management whereas focusing on the decision or outcomes draws attention to risk analysis. The papers examined in this paper are primarily concerned with decision makers and risk management. In doing so, we examine the social construction of risks and their control, how intelligence gathering and processing affects risk analysis and management, and the latent functions of risk regulation.

This Article examines the information systems that are available to the American public. Part H of the Article discusses crime information sources and limitations arising from their excessive dependence upon the same sources of information. Parts III and IV of the Article focus on the information and methods that American society depends upon to determine the amount and seriousness of"serious" crime. These parts of the Article criticize society's present modes of crime assessment by evaluating public perceptions of crime under several standards for determining the amount of harm that results from different criminal acts. In part V, the Article examines traditional perceptions about offenders and their pat-terns of offending and suggests that group and juvenile offenses are more prevalent and more serious than the public and the government consider them to be. Finally, the Article concludes in part VI that the crime reporting system has paid insufficient attention to juvenile offenders and to crimes of violence against property. This part concludes that the shortcomings of inaccurate and incomplete crime information pose problems for both the effectiveness of criminal justice systems and the communities that these systems attempt to safeguard.

The Social Indicators III report on public safety is, as its predecessor in 1976, largely a report on major crimes against persons and their property and social responses to them, rather than a statistical report on public safety. The view of crime as the overriding concern in public safety is examined. The profile of major crimes against persons as violent and against their property as serious is scrutinized by presenting more detailed statistics on victimization by crime and its consequences included in both Uniform Crime Reporting and the National Crime Survey. Evidence is provided that reporting for major types of crime, such as rape, robbery, burglary, and larceny-theft, masks considerable heterogeneity in seriousness of crime events. A substantial proportion of some crimes that are attempted, rather than completed events, that either result in no material harm to the victim or very little, and that disclose recovery and compensation for loss, all cast doubt upon the view that most crimes against persons are violent and that crimes against persons and property result in substantial physical harm and economic loss. Statistics on crime, unfortunately, do not permit one to relate the cost of one victimization to one economic position, so that just how trivial much crime victimization is remains in doubt. Current statistics likewise do not permit one to calculate one's risk of victimization by crime.

The usefulness of crime statistics in assessing US public safety &/or victimization is evaluated. Factors affecting the "violence" or "seriousness" of crimes against persons or property are discussed, eg, actual vs attempted crimes & their outcomes, victims' direct financial loss, loss of work time, medical expenses, psychic harm, & perceptions of risk. The absence of cost-outcome heterogeneity from national crime statistics is noted, as is the lack of local specificity & the emphasis of certain crimes as violent (eg, robbery & murder) over others, eg, arson or consumer fraud, which are potentially more costly to communal public safety. Modified HA.

A central problem for democratic government is how to limit their own use of force, particularly their use of deadly force. Government control of force can be accom plished in a number of ways, but principally by controlling opportunities for its exercise and decisions to use it. To con trol opportunities for the use of deadly force, institutions and their organization must be altered, whereas to control decisions to use it, organizations must manage them. Some major ways to control the use of deadly force by structuring opportunities and decisions are explored. Restricting op portunities for the legitimate use of force appears effective in reducing its use and the harmful consequences of injury and death. Current decision models for managing the use of deadly force rely too much upon a micromodel detailing the sequential "choice" points in decisions to use deadly force. Such models have distinct limits. Among the more serious ones are that they ignore the ways that the use of deadly force in police encounters with citizens may be averted or precluded and of how the behavior of police organizations can effect its use.

A central problem for democratic government is how to limit their own use of force, particularly their use of deadly force. Government control of force can be accomplished in a number of ways, but principally by controlling opportunities for its exercise & decisions to use it. To control opportunities for the use of deadly force, institutions & their organization must be altered, whereas to control decisions to use it, organizations must manage them. Some major ways to control the use of deadly force by structuring opportunities & decisions are explored. Restricting opportunities for the legitimate use of force appears effective in reducing its use & the harmful consequences of inquiry & death. Current decision models for managing the use of deadly force rely too much on a micromodel detailing the sequential "choice" points in decisions to use deadly force. Such models have distinct limits. Among the more serious ones are that they ignore how the use of deadly force in police encounters with citizens may be averted or precluded & how the behavior of police organizations can affect its use. HA.