ABSTRACT
There are clearly some fundamental logical intellectual difficulties posed for those seeking to research and explain criminal behaviour. First, there is little available empirical evidence to support the assumption that we have already reached a post ideological climate. To argue that we can achieve the position that no intellectual tradition can be considered to have privileged authority over another is seriously problematic as the only too obvious reality is that particular traditions are usually seen to be more authoritative. We should moreover note at this juncture that many influential social scientists and theorists deny the notion of postmodern society – which for such a social formation to exist would require some substantive rupture with the modernist social formation – and thus emphasising the continuities and following the influential social theorist Anthony Giddens (1990, 1991) use the term late modernity. The term postmodern condition is thus used in this book, although we might note that the equally distinguished social theorist Norbert Elias (1978, 1982) had previously observed that we live in a period of late barbarism.
