The Social Construction of Crime and Crime Control

Abstract

A number of disciplines have been deeply affected in recent years by constructionism, an approach that analyzes the processes by which social information is produced, disseminated, “verified,” and “disconfirmed.” Criminal justice too has developed a constructionist tradition, albeit mainly through attracting scholars from other fields into its terrain. This article traces the accumulation of the constructionist tradition within criminal justice by examining work in four areas: social histories of criminal justice practice and theory; critical criminology; research on the victimization of females; and feminist theory about the contribution of criminal justice to understandings of gender. If the constructionist approach continues to develop within criminal justice, it may lay the basis for a sociology of knowledge in the field.

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