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automatic deposit until 1981. During that time her daughter drew on the money that was regularly deposited in her deceased mother's account. This seems to involve a lesser degree of moral turpitude than cases where the deceased's signature is forged directly on the social security check. As with the above welfare cases, should such unwitting government encouragement in a violation be treated the same way as more autonomous violations?

20. See, for example, Westin and Baker (1972), Rule et al. (1980), and Perrolle (1983), for treatments of privacy and computers.

21. For example, in 1983 a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that a form mailed to 4 million social security recipients “makes a mockery of the consent requirement." The crippled, blind, and disabled recipients of supplemental security income were led to believe that their assistance might be denied if they refused to authorize access to their otherwise confidential tax returns.

22. For example, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services auditors found that the Social Security Administration's system for transferring large volumes of data between centralized computers and local offices could be improperly accessed rather easily. This was also the case for access to Social Security Administration terminals (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1981:

11).

23. For a discussion of the politics of conferring “routine use” status, see Kircher (1981).

24. For example, Office of Management and Budget guidelines for federal matching programs require that information concerning “routine use" matches be published in the Federal Register in reasonable proximity to their implementation. Technically, those subject to data searching are given notice in this way. However such publication requirements may have little meaning, since those subject to data searching are unlikely to read the Federal Register. Furthermore, "the reasonable proximity" requirement does not assure publication before the search is implemented. For example, a match conducted on federal student loans in August 1982 was not published in the Federal Register until December 1982 (U.S. Senate, 1982: 182).

25. What is often the fait accompli and incomprehensible and hidden nature of the process for determining guilt may show some parallel to the use of witches and trial by ordeal and other magical means for determining guilt.

26. For example, see U.S. Senate (1982: 4-40).

27. One difficulty in assessing impact is whether or not the rates of infraction stay the same. For example, 1981-1983 saw a significant increase in the use of systematic data searching and a concomitant rise in the discovery of fraud. But it is difficult to know how much of this is due to better discovery and how much to a worsened economy that may have resulted in increased rates of fraud.

28. Undercover means, for example, are expensive, restricted in scope, intrusive, and may "discover" crimes that would not have occurred were it not for the instigative activity of the investigation. Yet they can make discoveries not possible with other means. The investigator can exercise considerable initiative over the process. In contrast, efforts to increase citizen reporting are still relatively passive and dependent on whether or not, and with what, citizens choose to come forward. Undercover means are inexpensive and can cover a broad range of persons and areas. Anonymous means such as hotlines can encourage responsible as well as irresponsible accusations. Systematic data searching can be broad in scope and

450 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST

relatively inexpensive, and can avoid problems such as generating crime or maliciously inspired accusations, but, as noted, it has other costs.

29. Of course, keeping it a secret may work against the goal of deterrence. An implicit choice may be made between minimizing neutralization and maximizing deterrence. One solution is to hint at the powerful means of discovery being used without being specific. But leaks and the experience of apprehended persons work against this.

30. Lipsky (1980: 122), for example, finds that the routinization of bureaucratic functions reduces the chance to discover unique circumstances requiring flexible responses. The problem is compounded when a computer rather than a human agent is involved. Reliance on the computer (or any other machine) as a surrogate for human decision making may permit violations that deviate from the average to go undetected.

31. For example, in using a social security number other than one's own the unsophisticated person may simply make up a number and run the risk of being detected because he or she has chosen a number that was never issued. But sophisticated offenders will simply take a genuine number belonging to someone else and use that. Their chance of being discovered via a match of claimed to real social security numbers is slight. On the frequency and ease with which false identification is used, see the Report of the Federal Advisory Committee (1976).

32. This depends on the relative distribution of offender types. There is likely to be significant variation across offenses.

33. Beyond pushing toward discovery of a particular type of offender within an offense category, the computer may subtly influence the type of offenses to which police devote their energies. For example, a former chief of the Kansas City Police Department believes that computerization has led to an undue focus on minor offenses (unregistered cars, parking scofflaws) that can be dealt with very efficiently at the expense of other more important and difficult to solve crime problems (cited in Goldman 1983). The effectiveness of the means becomes an important, and often barely recognized, factor in deciding what ends will be pursued.

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You recently requested that the Department of Justice provide you with information concerning the prosecution of alleged Selective Service nonregistrants. The information provided below is current to March 18, 1984.

First, you asked how many names the Selective Service System referred to the Department of Justice and requested that such information be broken down by year.

In 1981, the Selective Service made 183 referrals. In 1982, the Service made 292 referrals. In 1983, the Service made three referrals of computer tapes containing information on possible nonregistrants. The first tape contained information concerning 5,151 possible nonregistrants; the second, information concerning 76,529 possible nonregistrants; and the third, information concerning 118,346 possible nonregistrants. 1/

Second, you asked how many of the referred names came from

a computer match performed by Selective Service.

The 1983 referrals overwhelmingly resulted from Selective Service's matching of registration records with state departments of motor vehicles records. However, such referrals also contain a relatively small number of names of persons who reported themselves as nonregistrants and of persons who were reported by others.

1/ The information on the tapes cannot be added together to determine the total number of nonregistrants since subsequent tapes contain the identities of possible nonregistrants from former tapes. Similarly, the final tape does not represent the entire universe of referred possible nonregistrants since it excludes previously referred persons who registered, were determined not to be within the registration class, or were previously selected by the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.