THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES FOR HISTORICAL ANALYSES

Abstract

Abstract One of the most obvious deficiencies in the literature on the criminal justice system is reflected in the lack of research on the historical development of the police, courts, and corrections. Even more evident is the paucity of research which is theoretically or methodologically grounded. As a result of the failure of historians to specify their a priori assumptions, methodology, and theoretical perspective, it is difficult for consumers of the literature to appreciate how researchers have selectively sampled and interpreted historical events and arrived at their conclusions. This article addresses this problem by adapting and applying to historical research on the juvenile justice system some of the theoretical and methodological insights presented by Thomas S. Kuhn (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and George Ritzer (1975) Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science. The study focuses upon outlining the assumptions and methodology underlying three theoretical perspectives which have been consciously or unconsciously adopted by a majority of historical researchers: the march of progress, social context, and conflict perspectives. After outlining these perspectives, a selective review of the juvenile justice literature is offered in order to demonstrate how these orientations have been applied in interpreting the origin, development, operation, and impact of the juvenile court and juvenile reformatory. Finally, suggestions are offered which provide general guidelines for applying these perspectives to any aspect of the criminal justice system within an historical context.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 9 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.