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Examples of terms that promise uncontested precision include: ‘cost–benefit’, ‘expected utility’, ‘decision theory’, ‘life-cycle assessment’, ‘ecosystem services’, and ‘evidence-based policy’.

Rational agents act intelligently, he tells us, to the degree that their actions aim to achieve their objectives, hence maximizing expected utility.

In economics and psychology, “expected utility theory” predicts that people work hardest, and perform their best, when the net returns to effort are highest.

Psychologist Paul Slovic and his colleagues are responsible for much of the overwhelming evidence that people evaluate risk-based situational features that evoke emotion rather than on expected utility.

The document makes the point that much of the thinking underpinning crime policy development is based on "expected utility theory" - broadly the idea that potential criminals make rational decisions on whether to commit a crime based on risk and reward.