NCJ Number
130194
Journal
Criminology Volume: 29 Issue: 2 Dated: (May 1991) Pages: 293-316
Date Published
1991
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This paper synthesizes recent trends in the development of critical criminology into a new theoretical direction in thinking about crime.
Abstract
It rejects approaches to criminological theory that reduce crime to an outcome of micro causes or macro contexts and suggests that thinking about crime should be reconsidered as the coterminous discursive production by human agents of an ideology of crime that sustains it as a concrete reality. The argument is proposed that this coproduction occurs when agents act out criminal patterns, when others seek to control criminal behavior, and when yet others attempt to research, philosophize about, and explain crime. It is argued that a reduction in crime will occur only with a reduction of investment by human agents in the ideology of crime production. Such a reflexive, reconceptualization requires the development of a replacement rather than an oppositional discourse and a peacemaking in place of a conflicting discourse. This new theoretical direction is termed constitutive criminology. 119 references (Author abstract modified)