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9 J. Res. Crime & Delinquency 1 (1972)

handle is hein.journals/jrcd9 and id is 1 raw text is: journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Introduction This issue presents additional pa- pers invited under an unusual solici- tation. As was the case for Volume Eight, Number Two, it had been my pleasure, as Editor, to be able to write to a number of persons known for their interest both in mathemati- cal models and the criminal justice field and to tell them that, for once, if they wished to submit a manu- script no limits would be set on the quantity and complexity of their no- tation, so long as it was conventional in form. This issue includes, like the last, the significant papers which re- sulted. Frances Baker Simon's paper, which could almost have been en- titled, Inefficient Statistics Are Best, presents some unexpected results. Her comparisons of different methods for building prediction tables (base expectancies) show that the statistical methods which we have all been taught to respect - such as multiple regression, discrim- inant analysis, and even predictive attribute analysis - are, upon vali- dation, no better than the simple weighting method used by Burgess about half a century ago for one of the first prediction tables. These results do not seem to be freaks, since similar findings have been noted in the United States with quite different kinds of data. The reasons for poor predictions would seem to lie, not in the ab- sence of powerful methods, but in the poor quality of the data base. Data about offenders are badly re- corded, badly encoded, and subject to poor collection methods. The purpose to be served by data collec- tion, if any, is too often seen as the protection of the system, rather than careful description of either persons or events. If the models re- ported in this issue (and others) are to be of more than theoretical inter- est, we must have serious attempts at honest description in the field and more careful recording in offices of administration throughout the crimi- nal justice system. Leslie T. Wilkins Professor of Criminal justice State University of New York at Albany 1

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