ABSTRACT
This is a book about the different ways in which crime and criminal behaviour have been explained in predominantly modern times. It will be seen that there are different explanations – or theories – which have been proposed at various times during the past 200 years by among others legal philosophers, biologists, psychologists, sociologists and political scientists. Moreover, these theories – in particular the earlier variants – have tended to reflect the various concerns and professional interests of the discipline to which the theorist or theorists has belonged. For example, biologists sought explanations for criminality in terms of the physiology of the individual criminal, while psychologists directed our attention to the mind or personality of the person. Increasingly, explanations have come to incorporate elements from more than one discipline. Thus, for example, some biologists came to recognise that individuals with the same physiological profiles will behave differently depending on the circumstances of their socialisation.
