Travis C. Pratt - Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice

KEY IDEAS in CRIMINOLOGY and CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Travis C. Pratt

Arizona State University

Jacinta M. Gau

California State University, San Bernardino

Travis W. Franklin

Sam Houston State University

Copyright 2011 by SAGE Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pratt, Travis C.
Key ideas in criminology and criminal justice / Travis C. Pratt, Jacinta M. Gau,
Travis W. Franklin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4129-7013-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4129-7014-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Criminology. 2. Criminal justice, Administration of. I. Gau, Jacinta M., 1982-II. Franklin, Travis W. III. Title.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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S cattered throughout the history of criminology and criminal justice are a variety of scholarly works that have left enduring marks within their respective fields. For example, it would be impossible to discuss the nature of punishment in the United States (and much of Europe) without acknowledging the profoundly influential work of Cesare Beccaria in his short treatise, On Crimes and Punishments. Likewise, an understanding of crime causation would be decidedly inadequate without recognition of Shaw and McKays work on social disorganization or Gottfredson and Hirschis more recent work on low self-control. One would, furthermore, be hard-pressed to explain the recent shift away from offender rehabilitation without affording Martinsons assessment of correctional treatment its due attention. These contributions, along with several others discussed in this text, have carved out unique positions in criminology and criminal justicethey have, in a sense, risen to the top and have become key ideas within their disciplines.

For the dedicated student, it does not take long to realize that certain scholarly contributions stand out among others. To be sure, it is these works that are usually first introduced to the student of criminology or criminal justice, and over the years various texts have been written to do just that. Identifying and explaining key works is certainly important in its own right, but vital questions still remain. For example, what are the circumstances that cause one work to rise to the top when other similar works seem to have gone unnoticed? After all, many key contributions, however compelling and articulate they may have been, were not necessarily the first (or at times, the most well-developed) pieces of work to address a particular idea, yet they rose up as dominant contributions to the field. Is there something about the work itself that caused it to stand out and to gain an unusual amount of attention? Does social context have anything to do with the apparent success or failure of certain ideas?

To more fully understand the rich history of criminology and criminal justice, the answers to these questions are particularly important. This book argues that the most influential research in the fields of criminology and criminal justice have earned their status as key ideas for reasons that extend beyond the theoretical developments and general findings of the research itself. Accordingly, this book is organized around a single unifying theme: explaining how two factors(1) the broader sociopolitical context or climate of the time and (2) the unique style and manner in which the research was marketed to its intended audienceare central to understanding the emergence of key ideas in criminology and criminal justice.

In doing so, each chapter in this text is dedicated to a key idea, or contemporaneous set of ideas, and adopts an organizational strategy that takes a four-part approach. First the key idea is introduced and explained to provide an essential understanding of its central components. Second, the sociopolitical climate during which the work was written is highlighted to bring attention to the importance of external conditions for understanding the widespread acceptance of the idea. Here it is demonstrated how social context is responsible for propelling some ideas to the forefront of criminology and criminal justice while repressing others from gaining much, if any, attention at all. Third, to more fully explain why the key work, as opposed to similar works, rose to the top and became a primary contribution to its field, the specific manner in which the idea was marketed or packaged to its audience is discussed. Ultimately, this provides clarity as to exactly how the key work was successfully disseminated for maximal influence in the field. Finally, the fourth part of each chapter explains the far-reaching effects of the key idea, demonstrating specifically how it has impacted or changed the discipline. This strategy provides the reader with not only a clear understanding of the key works themselves, but also with a complete picture of precisely how and why certain research efforts have come to yield such powerful influences while similar works have gone relatively unnoticed.

introduces the book. Theories in criminal justice and criminology, this chapter explains, cannot be viewed as independent of or divorced from the social and political milieu from which they sprang, nor can their content be understood as distinct from their discourse. Criminological ideas catch on because they are consistent with prevailing sociopolitical attitudes at the time, and because the authors of those ideas offered something unique and compelling that other authors working in the same time periods and promulgating similar ideas failed to provide.