NCJ Number
175190
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 26 Issue: 6 Dated: December 1998 Pages: 465-480
Date Published
1998
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Information from books focusing on each of five topics in criminal justice was analyzed to determine the intellectual status of the criminal justice field and to determine whether criminal justice is on its way to achieving autonomous standing.
Abstract
The study considered five problem areas: the war on drugs, community policing, current prison policies, youth gangs, and comparative policing. Three recent books were selected for each area. One represented a general overview of the topic, another was a research monograph, and the third was an edited reader. The goal was to review a variety of writings on the topic. All references used in the three books were categorized by the type of reference and the academic field of the journal in which cited articles were published. Authors limited themselves to basically three types of sources: academic journal articles, books, and publications reporting data or research findings. In addition, variation in the use of sources was pronounced among individual scholars. Moreover, the age of the topic seemed to have an impact on the sources used. Furthermore, the narrowness of a topic or type of book did not seem to have any relationship to the dispersion and concentration of sources. Criminal justice and criminology were the main academic fields of the journals, except for the topic of the war on drugs. Variation was greater among individuals than among topic areas; the age of the topic mattered, but so did narrowness. Findings indicated that theory development is still tied to establish fields, does not accurately reflect and incorporate the multiple intellectual traditions from which the field of criminal justice arose, and has failed to achieve a genuine multidisciplinary and multi-theoretical stance or project. Tables, notes, appended list of academic journals cited, and 49 references (Author abstract modified)