NCJ Number
91326
Date Published
1983
Length
27 pages
Annotation
An examination of the development of criminology in Great Britain since the end of World War II shows that the profession has expanded rapidly while the character of research and teaching has changed significantly from the immediate postwar years.
Abstract
The central element in the growth and change in criminology in Britain has been the support of criminological research by the Home Office under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act of 1948. This support has produced a Government research organization -- the Home Office Research Unit -- as well as the funding of most of the research done in British universities. There has been an increasing recognition of the importance of research for policymaking in criminal justice. There has also been an awareness of the difficulties of conducting research in a university setting so that it will be applicable to criminal justice decisionmaking. Academically, British criminology remains predominantly eclectic, pragmatic, and multidisciplinary. It has no dominant intellectual orientation and is virtually unconcerned with explanatory theory. The hopes of the founder of the National Deviancy Conference that crime study might be brought nearer to the mainstream of sociology seem not to have materialized to any great degree. Seventy-eight notes and 14 bibliographic entries are provided.