Criminology: Theory & Context
2nd edition
By John Tierney
September 2006
Pearson Education
Distrubuted by Trans-Atlantic Publications Inc.
ISBN: 1405823615
416 pages, Illustrated
$72.50 Paper Original
This is a clear, historical introduction to criminology that combines an accessible style with in-depth analysis to promote a broad understanding of this fascinating discipline. Close attention to the development of criminology and criminological theory provides a logical structure through which students will absorb the wide scope of this area from an appreciation of the societal and cultural influences that have shaped it.
Contents
Preface|
Introduction
The organization of the book
Selecting material
PART 1 PRELIMINARIES AND EARLY HISTORY
1. Criminology, crime and deviance: some preliminaries
Key themes
Good old common sense
Setting the scene
Criminology
Crime
Deviance
Selected further reading
2. Measuring crime and criminality
Key themes
Official statistics
The 'dark figures' of crim
Public reporting
Changes in the law
The role of the police
Ways of seeing
The implications for criminal statistics
Victim surveys
The usefulness of criminal statistics
Local crime surveys and left realism
3. Criminology and criminologists up to World War Two
Key themes
Tree of sin, tree of knowledge
The criminological tree of knowledge: sepearating the treee from the wood
Classicism and positivism
Positivist criminology
The turn of the century to the 1930s
Eugenics
Selected further reading
PART II WORLD WAR TWO TO THE MID-1960s
4. The discipline of criminology and its context - 1
Key themes
The emergence of criminology
Sociological criminology
Sociological criminology in Britain from the 1950s to the mid-1960s
Sociological criminology in the United States
Selected further reading
5. Social disorganization and anomie
Key themes
The sociology and criminology of Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917)
The Chicago School
Mertonian strain theory
Selected further reading
6. Strain, subcultures and delinquency
Key themes
A.K. Cohen: developments in the strain theory
R. Cloward and L. Ohlin: opportunity knocks
Selected further reading
7. Criminological theory in Britain
Key themes
American influences
Sociological criminology in Britain
Developing a British perspective
Cultural diversity theory
Schools and the 'problem of adjustment'
Subcultural theory: taking stock
Selected further reading
PART III THE MID-1980s TO THE EARLY 1970s
8. The discipline of criminology and its context - 2
Key themes
The development of sociological criminology in Britain
Teh break with orthodoxy: the new deviancy
The New Left
Radicals and the new deviancy: the impact on British criminology
Selected further reading
9. New deviancy theory: the interactionist approach to deviance
Key themes
Labelling theory
Learning to become 'deviant'
Primary and secondary deviancy
The amplification of deviance
Conceptualizing deviance
Criticisms of the new deviancy
Selected further reading
PART IV THE 1970s
10. The discipline of criminology and its context - 3
Key themes
Deviance and politics
The sociology of law: making laws, making deviants
Criminology in teh 1970s: other directions
Orthodox criminology
Radical critiques and the growth of the New Right
Selected further reading
11. Post-new deviancy and the new criminology
Key themes
Deviance and power
American conflict theory
Politicizing deviance
Critical criminology
Marx and Engels on crime
Taylor, Walton and Yound and the politicization of deviance
Politiczing deviance: nuts, sluts, preverts ... and revolutonaries?
Youth subcultures and politics
Critical deviance: deviance, crime and power
Phenomenology and criminology
Ethnomethodology
Control theory
Feminist perspective and criminology
Selected further reading
PART V THE 1980s TO THE MID-1990s
12. The discipline of criminology and its context - 4
Key themes
The shift to the right in British politics
Criminology's external history
Social organization
The growth of policy-oriented research
The nature and context of research
Policy-oriented research and the Left
Contemporary British criminology
13. Criminological theory
Key themes
Mainstream criminology
Longitudinal research and criminal careers
The historical roots
Feminism and criminology
Gender and crime
Administrative criminology
Right-wing criticism
Neo-positivism
Radical criminology
Critical criminology and left realism
Final remarks on this period
Postscript
Selected further reading
PART VI THE MID-1990s INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM
14. The discipline of criminology and its context - 5
Key themes
New Labour, old problems
Restorative justice
Social policy and New Labour
Crime prevention, crime reduction and community safety
Crime and criminal justice: the wider context
Criminology in the new millennium
Selected further reading
15. Recent developments in criminological theory
Key themes
Postmodernist perspectives
Feminist perspectives
Perspectives on masculinities
Control perspectives
Cultural perspectives
Critical perspectives
Final remarks
Selected further reading
Postscript to Chapter 15
References
Name index
Subject index
Features
* An historical, linear approach provides a clear and digestible overview
of the emergence and development of the discipline
* Criminological theory is discussed in depth and interweaved with the empirical
and historical context to provide a cohesive and integrated treatment of the
subject
* A broad range of data and examples provide evidence and grounding for analysis
and theory
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