Criminology and Its Discontents: The American Society of Criminology 2007 Sutherland Address

• NCJ Number: 223524
• Journal: Criminology Volume: 46 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2008 Pages: 255-266
• Author(s): Franklin E. Zimring
• Date Published: May 2008
• Length: 12 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This address focuses on the importance of crime and criminal justice as topics for scholarship in the contemporary developed world, the comparative advantage of the criminological perspective and method for studying crime and criminal justice, and current problems confronting criminology.

Abstract

Crime and criminal justice warrant thorough research because in the case of crime, the issue is the harmful individual behavioral extremes of human nature; and in the case of criminal justice, the issue is the harmful behavioral extremes of official institutions capable of tyranny and the oppression of human rights. Two core elements of criminology as a discipline separate its practitioners from others interested in crime and criminals. One distinguishing feature of criminology is its emphasis on crime and its control as social processes. Emerging from sociology, the criminological perspective recognizes the origins of deviant values and behavior as social processes, appreciates the importance of social stigma, and regards the construction and interpretation of responses to crime as social processes. The second major feature of criminological inquiry is its dedication to empirical theories of behavior that can be tested through research. Both the social and the empirical dimensions of modern criminology distinguish its research on crime and criminal justice from that of other disciplines. The author illustrates this claim by distinguishing the approaches of criminologists and economists in theory and research on the general deterrent effects of threatened punishment. He then proceeds to discuss four deficiencies in American criminological research in the current era: absence of empirical research of scale, failure to prioritize research that addresses current events, lack of international comparisons in criminal justice, and insufficient attention to the political and governmental dimensions of criminal justice. 2 figures and 16 references