Understanding Crime and Social Control Elsewhere: A Geographic Perspective on Theory in Criminology (From Research in Law, Deviance and Social Control, V 7, P 215-246, 1985, Steven Spitzer and Andrew T Scull, eds.)

• NCJ Number: 107324
• Author(s): C H Birbeck
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 32 pages
• Sale Source: Jai Press, Inc
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This essay responds to papers by Colin Sumner (1982), Stan Cohen (1982), and Martha Huggins (1985), all of which are concerned with explaining crime and social control in the Third World, using theories originating from outside these developing countries.

Abstract

These papers argue that existing criminological theories are derived from Western experience and that the testing of these theories in the Third World is inappropriate, since they do not adequately comprehend Third World experience. They conclude that criminology in the Third World requires new and distinctive theories rather than the testing of existing theories. This essay counters that it would be erroneous to reject existing criminological theory as inapplicable or invalid in the Third World without having first tested it in Third World settings. To embark upon the development of new criminological theory in the Third World without regard to existing theory fails to use the resource of criminological history. Currently, Western Europe and North America monopolize criminological theoretical production. Until these theories are given domains, there is no way of knowing their degree of specificity or universality. One task for the criminologist working in the Third World is therefore to subject existing theories to critical examination, which would not exclude Third World criminologists from developing distinctive theories based on such testing. 28 notes and 55 references.