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.”     

THE DETERMINATION OF ANTITRUST LIABILITY IN UNITED STATES v. MICROSOFT: THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE USED TO PROVE ITS CASE

This paper considers the empirical evidence used by the Departmentof Justice in the U.S. v. Microsoft antitrust case to provethat Microsoft engaged in exclusionary (and anticompetitive)actions in the browser market as part of its efforts to maintainits dominance of the personal computer operating system market.This evidence deserves special consideration because the DistrictCourt made the unusual decision to rely on the empirical evidencepresented by the Department of Justice rather than the empiricalevidence presented by Microsoft. This decision was unusual becauseMicrosoft's evidence had a strong presumption of validity asit was based on data that Microsoft collected and used in theordinary course of its business. Furthermore, no market participantsused the Department of Justice-sponsored data in any meaningfulway. Although it is impossible to determine with any certaintywhy the District Court ruled the way it did, I conclude thatthere were two driving forces in the court's decision. The Departmentof Justice identified serious flaws in Microsoft's data, makingit unreliable for the purposes for which Microsoft was usingit in the trial. The Department of Justice was also able toshow that no such flaws affected the data it sponsored and indeed,on many points, that data was more consistent with the testimonyof Microsoft executives than the data sponsored by Microsoft.