NCJ Number
132802
Editor(s)
J E Jacoby
Date Published
1979
Length
342 pages
Annotation
Selected works of criminologists who have made significant contributions to criminological knowledge and substantially influenced the thinking and practice of scholars cover classic descriptions of crime, theories of crime causation, and the social response to crime.
Abstract
Ten papers provide particularly clear descriptions of certain aspects of the phenomenon of crime. The writings' primary contribution is descriptive, although each has theoretical implications. The crime and criminality described pertain to gangs, thievery, juvenile delinquency in urban areas, white-collar criminality, hidden crime, victim-precipitated criminal homicide, criminal victimization in the United States, violent crime, and delinquency in a birth cohort. Twenty-three papers cover 200 years of theorizing about the causes of crime. Some of the writings are specifically about crime, and others address larger social issues that have direct implications for criminology. Among the crime-cause theories discussed are those that pertain to class conflict and law, feeble-mindedness, heredity, suicide, social structure and anomie, cultural conflict and crime, differential systems of values, the delinquent subculture, lower class culture and gang delinquency, control theory, and primary and secondary deviation. Fourteen papers -- variously descriptive, theoretical, or advocative -- address the social response to crime. These papers include some of the most significant representative works on the criminal justice process as it functions internally and as it relates to the society where it operates. Chapter tables and notes