NCJ Number
175388
Date Published
1997
Length
297 pages
Annotation
This volume examines critical criminology within a European context and argues that if criminology is to keep advancing as a field of knowledge, an urgent need exists for the resurgence of a theoretical perspective rather than a continued shift to an emphasis on more empirical, administrative research.
Abstract
The text surveys and contrasts and different and uneven development of criminology across Europe, the conditions under which critical criminology developed as a counter-paradigm, and the reasons it lost this position. It notes that critical criminologists argued that deviance, normality, and disorder should be studied as a problem of society in a more structural sense rather than considering crime a problem that particular individuals or groups represent to society. The analysis places themes such as crime prevention, safety, and victims within a framework of social justice. Individual chapters examine epistemological and methodological issues, the roots of European critical criminology, the rise and decline of critical criminology and related penal reform movements, and issues related to reshaping critical criminology for the present era. The analysis concludes that critical criminological theories aid understanding both of crime and of the institutions that aim to control it. Index and approximately 500 references (Publisher summary modified)