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4 J. Contemp. Crim. Just. ii (1988)

handle is hein.journals/jccj4 and id is 1 raw text is: ii EDITORIAL COMMENT This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice resulted from our concern with what appeared to be the atheoretical direc- tion of criminal justice research, education and practice. Pursuing this concern, our review of the literature found a great deal of work professing to be criminal justice theory. What followed was our attempt to resolve this apparent contradiction. Our call for papers solicited virtually any work that was related to this field. In response, we received a number of papers that we determined fell into two categories: (1) work addressing the development of criminal justice theory, and (2) papers that attempted an empirical test of theory related to criminal justice. We decided to focus this special issue on the first of these categories. It seems apparent by the lack of theory courses in most criminal jus- tice curriculums and the general lack of discussion of this issue that it is first necessary to examine the question of the existence or place of crimi- nal justice theory. It also seems self-evident that this cannot be done without examination and discussion of other fields of study, e.g., crimi- nology. Therefore, the major question we put forward is: Is there a body of criminal justice theory beyond criminology? The articles in this issue address this question. Richard Monk looks critically at the perceived rejection of traditional criminological theory and Scientific Research Programs (SRP) within cur- rent criminal justice research and theorizing., Utilizing a schools ap- proach, he argues that, until recently, criminologists, especially those following the program of Sutherland, have monopolized theory develop- ment in criminal justice. However, we contend that, if criminologists are to remain in the vanguard of theory development, they must address ques- tions relevant to the operation of the criminal justice enterprise and its so- cial importance or risk paying the penalty for not taking the conceptual lead by being surpassed by a very different SRP. Monk supplies us with an analytical scheme by which to get at basic assumptions and presuppositions underlying criminology and criminal justice. Unlike the other articles, his concern, reflecting both philosophy of science and sociology of knowledge perspectives, is to map out external influences as well as cognitive shifts within both criminology and crimi- nal justice theories. He says little about the actual operations of the crim- inal justice system and evidences no interest in orthodox systems analysis. However, by utilizing concepts and models from other disciplines, he may very well offer us heuristic devices by which to determine where we with- in criminal justice might have been, currently are, and might be going.

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