CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology

Criminology

Statement

From the early 1970's criminology was subject to a process of radicalisation which brought both positive and negative consequences for the discipline.

Introduction

During the 1960s, a critical criminological paradigm emerged to challenge the traditional, more conservative framework known as the “consensus paradigm.” Some referred to it initially as the “Marxist” or “conflict paradigm,” but that designation evolved up to the present. Currently, criminologists typically refer to the field as “radical” or “critical” criminology (Young, 2005). The more traditional, consensus paradigm emphasized order, homeostasis, and linear logic, accepted the legalistic definition of crime and official crime statistics, and focused on the working classes as crime prone with the non-problematic nature of who offenders were (Schwartz, 2006).

On the other side, radical or critical criminology problematized the definition of crime, nature of law, notions of causation, desirability of order, and who the offenders were (that is, now more extensively including the state, corporate actors, and white-collar crime).

Historical Development

During the 1960s, the emerging criminological perspectives were usually oriented to one of two theoretical approaches. First, there were those based on Marxist principles, especially of the instrumental Marxist variety. An early form was that of Willem Bonger, reaching its epitome with Richard Quinney's Critique of Legal Order (1974). Second, conflict theories relied on the work of Max Weber (1864-1920), Georg Simmel (1858-1918), Lewis Coser, Ralf Dahrendorf, George Vold, and Austin Turk. The Marxist-oriented versions were more likely to have an assumption that society was divided into two major groups, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and that it was driven by dialectical materialism (Rusche, 2007). The conflict version was more likely to have a plurality of groups (class, race, gender, and so on); these theorists saw conflict as ubiquitous, a normal occurrence in society. In both forms, however, these critical criminologists gained power and came to dominate the creation of law, definitions of crime, and the development of particular conceptions of the “criminal,” as well as notions of a particular desirable social order (Quinney, 2005).

A problem in explaining critical criminology is that it has almost as many variations as it has practitioners. Some criminologists are interested in German critical theory, including such seminal thinkers as Jürgen Habermas; some focus on French social thinkers such as Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, or Jacques Lacan. Others use the term critical simply to mean that they write in a radical tradition that is critical of the way in which modern capitalist society is constructed. By the 1980s, the term critical criminology had begun to evolve into a description of an umbrella group of theories of the left that at times shared and at times did not share viewpoints (Milovanovic, 2005). These groups achieved mainstream acceptance with the formation of the large division on critical criminology in the American Society of Criminology, and the section on critical criminology in the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. Most criminology textbooks today cover at least some of the elements of critical criminology.

Because theories and theorists do not exist in isolation, and many writers ...