We present a critique of a paper on inter-racial offending by Reidpath and Diamond (1998). That paper draws upon, but misrepresents, three publications by researchers at the Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia. Our critique provides a necessary clarification of the contents of the original research and includes a brief discussion of its context and purposes. While we point out a number of conceptual and numerical errors in the Reidpath and Diamond paper, we are more interested in advancing ideas on the role of modelling in criminology. Modelling exercises need to be closely linked to substantive explanation and theory if they are to avoid sterility.
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