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7 Brit. J. Delinq. 110 (1956-1957)
Research Frontiers in Criminology

handle is hein.journals/brijode7 and id is 118 raw text is: RESEARCH FRONTIERS IN CRIMINOLOGY* By MARSHALL B. CLINARD (WISCONSIN) Early studies in criminology, and to a minor extent later ones, emphasized the fact that criminality is related in some mysterious manner to the physical constitution. At other times criminologists have considered those who break the laws of society to be inferior mental types characterized by subnormal intelligence. A few have even regarded criminals as products of economic disadvantage, particularly the effects of poverty. When subjected to rigorous research, using wider and more representative samples, these theories have not been confirmed. It is possible now to conclude that, as a group, criminals cannot be distinguished from non-criminals on the basis alone of their physical constitution, mental intelligence, or economic background. Some other more profitable theories must be sought. Currently two such explanations have a wide following, the psychiatric on the one hand and the sociological on the other. Psychiatric theory tends to emphasize the emotional background and personality traits of offenders, while sociological theory stresses the r6le of group factors such as social norms, social r~les, and urbanization. Both theories, however, are increasingly seeking to explain criminal behaviour in terms which can best be described as the belief that ' criminal behaviour is essentially human behaviour.' 1 By this is meant that those characteristics which distinguish criminals from non-criminals are not biological or animal in nature, but rather the result of a dynamic process of personality development and human learning. As criminology turns more and more toward the study of these social psychological factors, new frontiers of important basic research are being encountered. These frontiers are the outcome of directing research to the essentially human nature of the behaviour of criminals rather than their biological nature. They are likewise the result of an increasing appreciation of the possibility of explaining the behaviour of human beings by some * Paper read at a Plenary Session of the Third International Congress on Crimino- logy, London, September 1955. 1 Marshall B. Clinard, 'Criminal Behavior is Human Behavior', Federal Probation, XIII, 21-6 (March, 1949).

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