CRIMINOLOGY

Criminology

Criminology

Introduction

Since the Enlightenment, scholars have constructed and evaluated many different theories of law, crime, and punishment. Unfortunately, there is relatively little agreement among criminology is multidisciplinary field comprised of conflicting theological, philosophical, biological, psychological and sociological perspectives, not to mention other relevant disciplines that do not fall neatly into these categories. It endures persistent disagreements over the political and economic interests supported by various criminological theories, situation that seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Moreover, like many (if not all) other fields attempt to explain realities of one kind or another, criminology lacks a clear and rational epistemology to guide theory testing.

The primary purpose of this to examine two dimensions of later issues two seemingly unsolved philosophical problems that plague the testing of criminological theories. The first theory that shall be discussed today is the choice theory, which shall be compared with the theory of causality theory. Here, special attention is given to the paradox of observational theories, a problem that encourages a fundamental reinterpretation of many empirical studies in criminology.

Choice Theory

Keeping in viewpoint of criminology, choice theory has been brought forth on the basis of a utilitarian concept (i.e. maximum people getting maximum benefit), which states that a man makes his own decisions on accounts rationality, facts and figures that have are put in front of him and thus on the basis of whatever seems best to him, the man himself choose the alternative. The word 'choice' clearly implies choosing a particular alternative that individuals have in order for them to make use of themselves. People make choices; some are difficult, some are easy, some are obvious, but some are extremely hard to find. More formally put, rational choice theory the Choice theory as described in the text would have a profound impact on the ...