Delinquency, crime, and social process

About this book

Book on criminological research studies and theories in the areas of crime, delinquency and social process. The emphasis in this book, however, is not exclusively on the problems of explaining what statistical distributions of crime and delinquency mean and how individuals become criminals and delinquents. The reader should be aware that as one examines statistical distributions of delinquency and crime rates and offender characteristics one must pay close attention to variables that relate to the settings and circumstances under which the statistics were collected. Once social scientists simply analyzed the available statistical facts. The datum for study is the process by which the statistical information is assembled, not just the final assembly. For example, arrest statistics are often used as the basis of generalizations about the social class distribution of delinquency and crime, but there is systematic underreporting of crimes of respectable segments of the society. Thus, among the selections reprinted in this book are research studies, descriptive accounts, and essays devoted to the illegal activities of businessmen, labor union officials, physicians, politicians, policemen, and middle-class youngsters. The theoretical framework of this book is designed to make these violations just as understandable as the criminal violations of persons in the lower socioeconomic class.