NCJ Number
155093
Date Published
1991
Length
491 pages
Annotation
This textbook details the basic theories of criminology and focuses on the definitions of crime, crime causes, offender characteristics, legal issues, and the practical uses and impacts of debates on criminal justice issues.
Abstract
Individual chapters focus on terminology and the criminal process, public attitudes and misconceptions regarding crime, official and unofficial statistics and estimates regarding the extent of crime, and victims and victimology. Additional chapters focus on biological influences on criminality, psychological theories of criminality, the relationships between mental illness and crime, the relationships between intelligence and crime, the influence of poverty and unemployment, strain theory, subculture theory, control theories, labeling theory, and conflict theory. Realism, positivist explanations of female criminality, and feminist theories are also examined. Index and chapter reference lists