NCJ Number
85206
Journal
Qualitative Sociology Volume: 4 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1981) Pages: 217-228
Date Published
1981
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The author examines influences of his personal experience with crime, his ideology, and his theoretical knowledge on his approach to the study of crime.
Abstract
Personal experience led to observations that responses to crime are often 'gut-level' rather than rational, that both street crime and the criminal justice system are characterized by incompetence, and that the retributive impulse must be considered in the study of crime. The author's radical ideology led to the conclusion that crime is linked with the structure of the economic system. Finally, the author's scholarly knowledge led to the recognition of the importance of the causality/meaning and determinism/voluntarism debates for the study of crime and for policy planning. The author concludes that one must recognize the importance of all three sources of one's understanding of crime in order to engage in criminological research. Ten notes and 27 references are included. (Author abstract modified)