犯罪学与刑事法制改革:以英国为例

过去30年英国的犯罪学发展具有两个明显特征:一个是"犯罪学"在多个维度的"膨胀";另一个是犯罪学"自治性"的增强。犯罪学在向自治学科转变的过程中既具有许多有益的方面,也存在诸多风险。它可能会丧失与其他学科之间的联系,也越来越容易受到外部环境的影响与制约,因而有必要对其存在的问题及其潜在的后果保持警觉。犯罪学知识的用途,在于为决策的制定提供科学依据。对犯罪学进行准确定位有两个核心要求:一是要承诺把犯罪学变成一个内涵广阔的学术概念,即将犯罪学的多元主义看作一个优势;二是要让犯罪学研究与实践保持长久的、基本的联系,将犯罪学知识渗入公众关注的犯罪和法制事件中,对"制度性环境"作出一个比现在更令人信服的解释。

Criminology and Criminal Justice Reform: The Case of the UK.

The development of criminology in the United Kingdom over the past three decades has two obvious features: One is the expansion of criminology across a number of dimensions.A second key theme has been that of growing autonomy.This process has clearly been beneficial in several respects.But several risks also flow from criminology’s transformation into an autonomous "discipline".There is a risk that the field will lose connection with basic disciplines.There is a risk of criminological research and teaching programmes becoming more vulnerable to external influence and control.There are in fact sound reasons to pay careful attention to its potentially damaging effects.The uses of criminology is to provide scientific support for decisions.The first key claim is a commitment to an intellectual capacious conception of the field of criminology-to making a virtue out of the necessity of criminological pluralism.The second key claim pertains to criminology’s long-standing,and arguably constitutive,connection to the world of practice.It means,first,bringing criminological knowledge to bear on matters of public concern about crime and justice.It further requires that criminology cultivates a more cogent understanding than has been developed hitherto of the institutional contexts in which knowledge is taken-up,used and abused-an analysis.