NCJ Number
110132
Journal
Criminology Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Dated: (February 1988) Pages: 87-100
Date Published
1988
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article examines how the debate between Blumstein et al. and Gottfredson and Hirschi has shifted the criminological focus to issues of etiology again, and it suggests a reconceptualization of some issues raised in the debate.
Abstract
The 'new etiology' raised by the debate is more broadly based than in the past. Gottfredson and Hirsch have contributed with arguments about the conceptualization and operationalization of etiological research and its funding. Blumstein et al., who have done so much to attract government support for the funding of this research, have played a significant role in reasserting some of the research issues that have attracted this support and by reprising the research framework that organizes their work. A renewed research agenda is best developed, however, through conceiving crimes as social events embedded in the life course and best analyzed through the methods of event history analysis, using retrospective histories or prospective longitudinal data. These issues of conceptualization and operationalization are more important than some of the more specific questions emphasized thus far in the debate. 22 references.