NCJ Number
140299
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 32 Issue: 4 Dated: special issue (Autumn 1992) Pages: 403-422
Date Published
1992
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This paper critiques Michel Foucault's characterization of criminology as a disciplinary knowledge and attempts to reformulate the range of modern 20th-century criminology as a guide to further research. The focus here in on the history of criminal justice research in Britain.
Abstract
In his work, Foucault emphasized certain themes in criminology including individualization, differentiation, and normalization. This author argues that, while those concepts are still adhered to by many present-day criminologists, other experts are now presenting a counter-discourse which criticizes those themes and offers new concerns and issues for discussion. Foucault focused primarily upon the prison and the relations between psychiatry and the law. This author maintains that Foucault's analysis should be viewed as a genealogy of one element of criminology rather than as a history of the entire discipline. He outlines an agenda for research that would allow the development of a more complete understanding of the discipline's intellectual, institutional, and social and cultural history. 8 notes and 47 references