NCJ Number
161531
Editor(s)
J Muncie,
E McLaughlin,
M Langan
Date Published
1996
Length
553 pages
Annotation
This volume contains classic and contemporary readings that introduce undergraduate students to the eclectic nature of criminological knowledge.
Abstract
Part I (eight chapters) focuses on the origins of criminology as expressed through a variety of subject positions and theoretical arguments. It shows a number of historical criminological perspectives, from classicist interpretations of the function of law, positivist inquiries into the causes of crime, and quantitative studies of crime statistics, through Marxist, sociological, and anarchist critiques of the problems of crime, law, the state, and social order. Part Two (nine chapters) focuses on criminology's historic concern to discover the causes of crime. The readings illustrate some of the key contemporary attempts to address crime causation and include discussions of genetic factors, personality traits, social disorganization, consumption patterns, illegitimacy and the underclass, relative deprivation, masculinity, and the moral and expressive attractions of crime in preference to law-abiding behavior. Part Three (nine chapters) continues the probe into the problem of crime. The chapters show that understanding the problem of crime does not simply involve trying to account for why certain individuals transgress moral and legal codes while others do not; it also requires questioning why only certain behaviors are subjected to criminal sanction while other harmful acts may be allowed without sanction or are socially approved. Part Four (seven chapters) examines a number of competing rationales for systems of crime control, and Part Five (six chapters) explores how individuals and populations are controlled not simply through the formal processes of criminal justice, but through the imposition of forms of regulation and surveillance in nonjudicial "community" settings. Part Six (seven chapters) poses a number of questions about the futures of criminology and its potential for theoretical development. For individual chapters, see NCJ-161532- 56. Chapter references and a subject index