NCJ Number
154635
Date Published
1991
Length
287 pages
Annotation
Intended primarily for law students, this text on the fundamentals of criminology focuses on the nature and causes of crime as well as society's response to it (prevention and sanctioning).
Abstract
The opening chapter on "Issues Concerning the Scientific Theory of Criminology" considers the concept and subject of criminology, the method of criminology, and the position of criminology within the system of disciplines and its relation to other disciplines. Four chapters on the history of criminology provide an overview of criminological views and research up to the end of the 19th century, changes in criminological views and research at the turn of the century and subsequent decades, modern criminological views, and the development of criminology in Hungary. Modern criminological views are placed in the broad theoretical categories of theories with a social outlook and modern biopsychological schools. A chapter on the "Main Morphological Features of Crime" considers the extent of delinquency, the structure of crime, the dynamics of crime, and the cost of crime. A discussion of criminological prognoses addresses prognoses on the dynamics and structure of delinquency and predictions of delinquency and recidivism. Other chapters focus on the causes of individual criminal acts and crime in general, the offender's personality and its role in crime commission, the role of biological factors in criminal behavior, the relationship between social factors and crime, and crime prevention. The latter chapter focuses on both the social and legal structures that have proven effective in preventing criminal behavior. Chapter notes and tables and subject and name indexes