Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice

Explores the key contributions to the fields of criminology and criminal justice from the late 18^th century to today— and the conditions that led to their prominence

The development of both criminology and criminal justice has been characterized by different theories and ideas that capture academic (and sometimes political) imaginations and send the discipline veering in entirely new directions. Why did these ideas catch on? What about them attracted and held scholars′ attention and on occasion caused them to impact policy considerations? Why do they still have value today? These are the questions addressed in Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice is an innovative, fascinating treatment of some of the seminal theories in criminology and key policies in criminal justice, offering a detailed and nuanced picture of these core ideas. With a fluid, accessible, and lively writing style, this brief text is organized around major theories, ideas, and movements that mark a turning point in the field, and concludes with a discussion of the future of criminology and criminal justice. Readers will learn about the most salient criminological and criminal justice research and understand its influence on theory and policy. They will also understand the surrounding socio-political conditions from which the ideas sprang and the style and manner in which they were disseminated, both of which helped these scholarly contributions become cornerstones in the fields of criminology and criminal justice.

Travis C. Pratt received his degrees from Clark College, Washington State University (BA, Political Science; MA, Criminal Justice), and the University of Cincinnati (PhD, Criminal Justice). He has served on the faculty of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark, was the Director of the Program in Criminal Justice at Washington State University, and a Professor the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. He is currently a Fellow with the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute. His research and publications focus primarily on structural and integrated theories of crime and delinquency (including macro-level, multilevel, and individual-level approaches to the study of criminal/deviant behavior) and correctional policy (both institutional and community corrections). He has published over 100 articles that have appeared in the leading peer-reviewed journals in the field, including: Crime and Justice: A Review of Research; Criminology; Journal of Youth and Adolescence; Journal of Pediatrics; Journal of Quantitative Criminology; Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency; and, Justice Quarterly. He received the 2006 Ruth Shonle Cavan Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology for his research and scholarship. Jacinta M. Gau, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida. She received her doctorate from Washington State University in 2008. Her primary areas of research are policing and criminal justice policy, and she has a strong quantitative background. Dr. Gau’s work has appeared in journals such as Justice Quarterly, British Journal of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Crime & Delinquency, Criminology & Public Policy, Police Quarterly, Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, and the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. In addition to Statistics for Criminology and Criminal Justice, she is author of Criminal Justice Policy: Origins and Effectiveness (Oxford University Press) and co-author of Key Ideas in Criminology and Criminal Justice (SAGE Publications). Additionally, she co-edits Race and Justice: An International Journal, published by SAGE.   Travis W. Franklin earned his Ph.D. in criminal justice from Washington State University in 2008 and is currently an assistant professor in the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University. His research interests focus on the effects of race and ethnicity on the processing of offenders through criminal courts, violence in correctional institutions, the causes and correlates of fear of crime, and biological predictors of crime and delinquency. His recent work has appeared in Criminal Justice and Behavior, Journal of Criminal Justice, Feminist Criminology, and Social Justice Research.