NCJ Number
78563
Journal
Criminal Justice Review Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1980) Pages: 81-89
Date Published
1980
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Explanations for the antihistorical posture prevalent in criminal justice education curriculums are presented, and a rationale for including historical approaches in such education is advanced.
Abstract
The educational philosophy of criminal justice curriculums properly includes a concern for the addressing of current problems and planning for future eventualities, but this often excludes a regard for the significance of the past. This disregard for the past is said by many commentators to be rooted in a growing perception of the irrelevancy of the values and even the errors of the past in dealing with current problems and the projected future. The collapse of confidence in the values and policies of the previous generations has either left people with a sense of hopelessness or the belief that problems must be solved and a future forged out of new ideas generated solely from present creative thinking. Daniel Bell (1966) includes these reasons for offering history in a liberal education: (1) to provide a 'vocabulary of reference' for the historical imagination, (2) to emphasize the role of contexts in establishing the meaning of ideas, (3) to identify the relevant antecedent events that have shaped the present, and (4) to be a source for comparative analysis. History can provide a description of past planning or lack of planning for change. Problems in the social order are recurrent, and it is important that those responsible for maintaining and advancing the social order be aware of what has already been done and its consequences, so that money, time, and energy may not be uselessly spent. A total of 43 references and 5 footnotes are listed.