The power of oppression: Understanding the history of criminology as a science of oppression

Conclusion Following, or perhaps even being swept away by the propositions and suppositions of science, criminologists have written a rather sanitized, carefree history of the origins of their discipline. This discipline has much to hide, however, and criminologists' strict adherence to principles and claims of ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ have helped hide the unspoken task that is criminology from view. There is a need to excavate the hidden history of criminology from the basement of scientific criminology. This excavation requires the use of tools sensitive to oppression and conflict. Using such tools to recover, rewrite and explain the history of criminology, I have argued that criminology should be (a) interpreted as one of the many ‘sciences of oppression’ that (b) emerged following the Enlightenment (c) whose purpose was to help legitimize and place into practice principles that justified the oppression of the dangerous classes, (d) which had emerged as the primary threat to the ‘rational’ societies based upon capitalist social, economic and political relations. I suspect that this will not be a popular conclusion. The traditions of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. Karl Marx,The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte     

In search of criminological tradition: the development of criminology in Taiwan

There has been a growing interest in the historical development of criminology(ies) throughout the world. This paper examines the development of criminology in Taiwan (Republic of China) using both questionnaire and interview data. Textbooks, institutional development, and research activity are taken as proxy measures of a criminological tradition. Beginning with criminology in Republican China (1929–1949), the article explores the key features of change in criminology against the background of Taiwan's own particular adoption of social, political and economic ‘modernisation’. Foreign influence and the contemporary meaning of ‘indigenous’ are considered. The article ends with a research agenda for a grounded historical sociology of criminology on Taiwan; key identified research questions relate to sponsorship, research priorities and the production of criminological knowledge; the reception of research by policy communities and practitioners; the relationship between criminological knowledge and politics; and the processes of selective appropriation.     

Towards an epigenetic approach to experimental criminology: The 2004 Joan McCord Prize Lecture

One of the numerous important contributions of Joan McCord to criminology was her long term follow up of an exceptionally well designed experimental prevention study initiated in the 1930s. Her work influenced a large number of longitudinal and experimental studies which form the basis of developmental and experimental criminology. The aim of this paper is to highlight how developmental criminology, experimental criminology, and developmental genetics (epigenetics) are starting to blend together to explain the causes of antisocial behavior, and more importantly to help prevent chronic antisocial behavior. The paper uses physical aggression as an example of a developmental outcome of gene–environment interactions.     

Social support as an organizing concept for criminology: Presidential address to the academy of criminal justice sciences

Although “social support” is present as a theme in many criminological writings, it has not been identified explicitly as a concept capable of organizing theory and research in criminology. Drawing on existing criminological and related writings, this address derives a series of propositions that form the foundation, in a preliminary way, for the “social support paradigm” of the study of crime and control. The overriding contention is that whether social support is delivered through government social programs, communities, social networks, families, interpersonal relations, or agents of the criminal justice system, it reduces criminal involvement. Further, I contend that insofar as the social support paradigm proves to be “Good Criminology”—establishing that nonsupportive policies and conditions are criminogenic—it can provide grounds for creating a more supportive, “Good Society.”     

Crime,criminology and human rights: Towards an understanding of state criminality

This paper explores issues related to the analysis of a type of criminality frequently ignored in criminological literature: crimes of the state. It explores the potential of critical criminology to deal with state criminality via investigation of such issues as state interventions, overlapping activities of criminal versus non-criminal organizations and the distinction between individual and state actors. The paper specifically examines state criminality via analysis of the activities of the CIA and FBI in the United States. These activities include methods of surveillance, wiretapping, mail tampering, and the use of agents provocateurs. It also examines issues related to relativity in the definition of terrorism and the use of terrorism by the state. It is argued that, unless criminologists begin to address these issues, criminologists may find themselves in the awkward position of aiding the criminalization of non-criminal peoples around the world.     

The power few: experimental criminology and the reduction of harm

The promise of experimental criminology is finding ways to reduce harm from crime and injustice. The problem of experimental criminology is that so few experiments produce evidence of big effects from the interventions they test. One solution to this problem may be concentrating scarce resources for experiments on the “power few:” the small percentage of places, victims, offenders, police officers or other units in any distribution of crime or injustice which produces the greatest amount of harm. By increasing the homogeneity and base rates of the samples enrolled in each experiment, the power few hypothesis predicts increased statistical power to detect program effects. With greater investment of resources, and possibly less variant responses to greater dosages of intervention—especially interventions of support, as distinct from punishment—we may also increase our chances of finding politically acceptable interventions that will work.

The purpose of knowledge: pragmatism and the praxis of marxist criminology

This paper revives and revises the argument that there is no place for a concept of crime in marxist theory, and consequently that there is no theoretical justification for the development of marxist criminology. However, earlier essays along these lines have adopted a rationalist epistemology in advancing this case — with its attendant difficulties of idealism, privileged conceptualization and inflexibility. The present paper attempts to escape such problems, and to extend the critique of criminological theorization, by developing its case on the basis of a pragmatist epistemology. It is argued that the conflicting aims of marxist theory and the bourgeois legal theory from which crime is transferred make it difficult for marxist criminology to generate a unified theory to guide political practice and research. Moreover, Marxists' privileging of the concept of crime may be systematically blinding them to political developments which render criminology historically obsolescent.     

The TECTRA Newsletter: Implications for its usefulness as an information diffusion tool

Statement of Problem

To develop and test the usefulness of the TECTRA Newsletter, a mechanism for disseminating information about technology transfer and the TECTRA data base. Current literature was used to show the emerging importance of technology transfer and the Newsletter's role in this area.

Sources of Data

Primary data was collected from the recipients of the Newsletter. This included technology transfer agents, administrators of various municipal government departments, and some executives in private enterprise.

Conclusions Reached

It was shown that the TECTRA Newsletter created interest in the cases reported by the Newsletter, as well as awareness of the TECTRA data base. It was also shown that the Newsletter is regarded as a useful tool by readers, and should therefore be viewed as an on-going project.     

The DutchAlgemene Rekenkamer and its role in light of contemporary theory

European Journal of Law and Economics - In this article I try to find answers for three questions: Which functions are exercised by the Court of Audit in the Netherlands, and what kinds of...     

The New Zealand DNA databank: its development and significance as a crime solving tool.

The New Zealand DNA Databank was established following the introduction of legislation in August 1996. Using the Second Generation Multiplex (SGM), DNA profiles from over 13,000 convicted offenders and volunteer donors have been completed to the National DNA Database. Since June 1998, DNA profiles from over 1,400 unsolved crimes have been entered onto the Crime Sample Database. Of all unsolved crimes analysed, 33% are linked to individuals and 21% are linked to other unsolved crimes. Several high profile types of case including homicides, sexual offenses and burglaries are amongst those regularly solved.     

The theory of postmortem rigidity: the history and an original concept

The original theory of postmortem rigidity has been developed and substantiated based on the concept of postmortem muscular contracture. It is postulated that the unrestricted growth of Ca2+ concentration in myoplasm of contractile cells during the immediate postmortal period brings the actin-myosine complex to the force generation state without subsequent relaxation.     

The peripheral core of law and criminology: On postmodern social theory and conceptual integration

Despite significant challenges to some of the ideological underpinnings of the postmodern critique, critical theory building in law and criminology increasingly is subjected to the wholesale advances of this growing, albeit heterodox, school of thought. One greatly underexamined component of postmodern research is a provisional treatment of how its various formulations might suggest alternative approaches to understanding criminal justicians, their research, and their practice. Accordingly this essay assesses core themes (both sociological and epistemological) informing the regard of this perspective for theory construction in law and criminology. Several topics are considered: the social structure of society, role formation, human agency, discourse construction, knowledge or sense making, and social change. Building on Milovanovic's conceptual distinctions between the modernist and the postmodernist projects, the author concludes by speculating on what a model of postmodern conceptual synthesis might encompass, and on how this vision of reality promotes a more humanistic justice than the conventional forms of theoretical integration.