This article uses empirical research on the implementation of risk assessment and risk
management procedures by public protection panels in England and Wales, to assess how
far the evidence supports claims of a broad shift in modes of crime control from penal
modernism towards a newrisk penality'characteristic of the late (or post-) modern period. The
result is a mixed and contradictory picture, in which the dominant discourse around
measures to deal with sexual anddangerous' offenders is in tune with this claim, but there …

This article uses empirical research on the implementation of risk assessment and risk
management procedures by public protection panels in England and Wales, to assess how
far the evidence supports claims of a broad shift in modes of crime control from penal
modernism towards a new'risk penality'characteristic of the late (or post-) modern period.
The result is a mixed and contradictory picture, in which the dominant discourse around
measures to deal with sexual and'dangerous' offenders is in tune with this claim, but there …