Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the ...
Like rational choice theory, conflict theory, or functionalism, pure sociology is a sociological paradigm — a strategy for explaining human behavior. Developed by Donald Black as an alternative to individualistic and social-psychological theories, pure sociology was initially used to explain variation in legal behavior. [1]
In criminology, differential association is a theory developed by Edwin Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior. The differential association theory is the most talked about of the learning theories of deviance.
In 1976, theoretical sociologist Donald Black introduced a general sociological theory of law in his book The Behavior of Law. The theory exemplified Black's sociological paradigm known as pure sociology. [1] [2] A central aspect of this paradigm was the reconceptualization of human behavior as the behavior of social life.
Irrespective of whether sociology of law is defined as a sub-discipline of sociology, an approach within legal studies or a field of research in its own right, it remains intellectually dependent mainly on the traditions, methods and theories of sociology proper, criminology, administration of justice, and processes that define the criminal ...
Strain theory fails to explain white collar crime, the perpetrator of whom have many opportunities to achieve through legal and legitimate means. Strain theory fails to explain crimes based in gender inequality. Merton deals with individuals forms of responses instead of group activity which crime involves. Merton's theory is not very critical ...
Critical criminologists assert that how crime is defined is socially and historically contingent, that is, what constitutes a crime varies in different social situations and different periods of history. The conclusion that critical criminological theorists draw from this is that crime is socially constructed by the state and those in power. [8]
It is this lack of integration between what the culture calls for and what the structure permits that causes deviant behavior. Deviance then is a symptom of the social structure. Taylor et al. intend a combination of Interactionism and Marxism as a radical alternative to previous theories to formulate a "fully social theory of deviance".