Compare methods

	Propensity Score Methods in Criminology	Propensity Score Weighting
Field	Criminology	Causal inference
Family	Process / pipeline	Regression model
Year of origin	1983	1983 (propensity score); 2003 (efficient IPW estimator)
Originator	Paul Rosenbaum & Donald Rubin (method); Apel & Sweeten (criminological application)	Rosenbaum & Rubin (propensity score); Hirano, Imbens & Ridder (efficient weighting)
Type	Observational causal-inference technique applied to crime and justice interventions	Causal inference / reweighting
Seminal source	Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41–55.	Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41-55.
Aliases	Propensity Score Analysis in Crime and Justice Research, Criminological Propensity Score Matching, Observational Causal Inference in Criminology, Propensity Score Adjustment for Justice Interventions	PSW, inverse probability weighting, IPW, propensity-based weighting
Related	4	6
Summary	Propensity score methods estimate the causal effect of a criminal-justice treatment — such as incarceration, gang membership, a diversion program, or arrest — from observational data, where random assignment is impossible. Building on Rosenbaum and Rubin's 1983 framework and adapted to crime research by Apel, Sweeten, and others, the approach summarizes many confounders into a single probability of treatment, then matches, weights, or stratifies on it to approximate a randomized comparison. This page covers the criminological application; for the general estimators see propensity-score-matching and propensity-score-weighting.	Propensity score weighting is a causal-inference method that reweights observations so that the covariate distributions of treated and untreated units look exchangeable, enabling unbiased estimation of average treatment effects from observational data. Each unit receives a weight that is the inverse of its probability of receiving the treatment it actually received — a strategy formalised by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) and given its efficient semiparametric form by Hirano, Imbens and Ridder (2003).