EXPLAINING AND PREVENTING CRIME: THE GLOBALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 1999 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

During the 1990s, there has been an enormous increase in influence in criminology of the risk factor prevention paradigm. This aims to identify the key risk factors for offending (in longitudinal studies) and implement prevention methods designed to counteract them (in experiments). In addition, protective factors are identified and enhanced. This paradigm has fostered linkages between explanation and prevention, between fundamental and applied research, and between scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. It has encouraged the globalization of knowledge, cross‐national comparative studies, and the application of similar strategies for research and action in several different countries. The main challenges for the paradigm are to determine which risk factors are causes, to establish what are protective factors, to identify the active ingredients of multiple component interventions, to evaluate the effectiveness of area‐based intervention programs, and to assess the monetary costs and benefits of interventions. The paradigm can be improved using longitudinal and experimental studies, which aim to retain its advantages while overcoming its problems. Ideally, an international network of researchers should collaborate in investigating and explaining results in different countries.     

THE LEVEL OF EXPLANATION PROBLEM REVISITED—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 1997 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

This presentation revisits the “level of explanation problem” in criminology (a personal project begun more than 35 years ago). I develop the problem historically, paying tribute to those who have led the way and those who continue it. I distinguish between the situational and interactional levels of what has previously been termed the “microsocial” level of explanation. I then elaborate the interactional level and its application to the study of youth collectivities discussed.     

SILENCE AND MEMORY IN CRIMINOLOGY—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2009 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

Two recent American Society of Criminology presidential addresses have identified as a key problem the fact that criminology lacks a history. In this address, I ask why criminology (in contrast to closely related fields) has generated so few studies of its past; I also identify some results of this failure and discuss why intellectual fields need a sense of their origins and development. History molds individual and collective identities; it lays a foundation for sociologies of knowledge; it encourages reflexivity, teaches us where our ideas came from, and gives us a sense of where we are going. To encourage historical work, I propose an overall framework for understanding the evolution of criminology, reaching back to the late eighteenth century and continuing into the present. My overall framework is that of scientific modernism, within which I identify the following three primary phases: exploratory modernism, confident modernism, and agonistic modernism. In conclusion, I suggest ways to stimulate histories of science in the field of criminology.     

BEYOND ADOLESCENCE‐LIMITED CRIMINOLOGY: CHOOSING OUR FUTURE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2010 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

For over a half century, criminology has been dominated by a paradigm—adolescence‐limited criminology (ALC)—that has privileged the use of self‐report surveys of adolescents to test sociological theories of criminal behavior and has embraced the view that “nothing works” to control crime. Although ALC has created knowledge, opposed injustice, and advanced scholars’ careers, it has outlived its utility. The time has come for criminologists to choose a different future. Thus, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in life‐course criminology, brings criminologists closer to offenders and to the crime event, prioritizes the organization of knowledge, and produces scientific knowledge that is capable of improving offenders’ lives and reducing crime.     

REASON FOR EMOTION: REINVENTING JUSTICE WITH THEORIES,INNOVATIONS, AND RESEARCH—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2002 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

Criminology was born in the age of reason to apply “reason” to justice, tempering the expression of moral indignation with the economics of deterrence. Modern criminology is now poised for reinventing justice around the emotions of victims, offenders, and society. One prime example is restorative justice. Others include wider use of biomedical mental health treatments for offenders, programs to make justice officials more aware of the emotional impact of their words on citizens, and programs to help justice officials manage their own emotions. Research can advance theory and innovations as a basis for a new paradigm of “emotionally intelligent justice.”     

MORALITY,MARKETS, AND THE ASC: 2011 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY*

This Presidential Address explores the possibilities for fruitful multilevel theorizing in criminology by proposing an integration of insights from situational action theory (SAT), a distinctively micro‐level perspective, with insights from institutional anomie theory (IAT), a distinctively macro‐level perspective. These perspectives are strategic candidates for integration because morality plays a central role in both. IAT can enrich SAT by identifying indirect causes of crime that operate at the institutional level and by highlighting the impact of the institutional context on the perception‐choice process that underlies crime. Such multilevel theorizing can also promote the development of IAT by revealing the “micro‐instantiations” of macro‐level processes and by simulating further inquiry into the social preconditions for institutional configurations that are conducive to low levels of crime. Finally, drawing on Durkheim's classic work on occupational associations, I point to the potential role of professional associations such as the American Society of Criminology in promoting and sustaining a viable moral order in the advanced capitalist societies.     

THE LIFE COURSE OF CRIMINOLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES: THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2003 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

The field of criminology lacks a sense of its own history. To rectify this situation, I apply the concepts and framework of the life‐course perspective to the development of criminology as a discipline. Examining criminology in the United States over the last 100 years, I discuss three eras (or life‐course phases), intellectual continuities and turning points in the field. My thesis is that if we knew our history, we would realize that ideas about crime matter. I offer a revised version on how to view criminology and in doing so address the theme of the 2003 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, “The Challenge of Practice, the Benefits of Theory.”