NCJ Number
86848
Date Published
1982
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Criminologists should study those who seize power and knowledge and use it to repress, exploit, injure, and kill others.
Abstract
Criminal activity arises from the actions of interacting persons who, in the course of their dealings with one another, modify the power relations they have with one another. It is the dynamics of such 'criminal' interactions that criminologists should analyze in efforts to understand how criminal behavior emerges. Criminal situations must be studied in terms of the prior understandings and interpretations offenders, victims, and criminologists bring to situations involving criminal conduct. First, an understanding of the foreinterpretations and understandings of the criminal and the victim toward one another must be grasped. This understanding leads to the seeds of the thought that rehearses the act against the victim. This involves an analysis of the meanings, motives, interpretations, and images held by the offender prior to and during the criminal act. The second step in the hermeneutical understanding of criminal activity is the analysis of the actual time and space movements of the offender leading up to and issuing in the crime. Thirdly, thoughts and feelings associated with the various movements involved in the crime should be identified, including considerations of any moral or consequential interpretations associated with the acts. Finally, mental interpretations and reconstructions that come after the offense should be examined. This close-up study of criminality is essential to understanding crime's place in society and social structures. Five notes and 40 references are provided.