Letters

Delinquent Criminology

To the Editor:

Criminology is a multi-disciplinary field. Although a plurality of its practitioners may have roots in sociology, the field finds room for the theories and methods of all relevant disciplines. The result is an enormous body of intellectual and scientific material. From some perspectives, this result is chaos. From others, it is a level of intellectual ferment found nowhere else in the social and behavioral sciences. From no reasonable perspective, it seems to me, does the state of the field call for the revisions suggested by Mike S. Adams in “A Delinquent Discipline: The Rise and Fall of Criminology” (Fall 2009, vol. 22, no. 4).

A return to the classical perspective is not required. It has already occurred. Theories based on choice assumptions are the most frequently cited and tested in the field. The self-report method