ABSTRACT
Whether a clinical or legal decision assigns an offender to a specific treatment modality or determines his or her release conditions, it inevi tably involves the interpretation o f a particular case as a member o f a larger, more general group. Thus, classification, which is widely recog nized as a vital precursor and sustainer o f all scientific inquiry (Ghiselin, 1981; Hempel, 1965), plays a particularly important role in the study o f criminal behavior, where dispositional decisions abound. I f a population o f offenders is heterogeneous, specific treatments may be differentially effective for subgroups in that population, particular subgroups may vary in their outcomes, and the predictive power o f variables may fluctu ate from group to group.
