ABSTRACT

The final chapter of this book explores what it means to position criminal thinking at the head of a working paradigm for criminology as the core construct. In so doing, it illustrates how perception and thinking determine the manner in which social variables affect people. It is not the situation to which the person attends, but his or her interpretation of the situation that determines his or her reaction. Chapter 12 ends with recommendations for a working paradigm in criminology by emphasizing the five characteristics of a good or useful theory: comprehensiveness, parsimony, internal consistency, accuracy, and fruitfulness. Whether criminal thinking plays a key role in a working paradigm that eventually provides criminology with normal science depends on how the three stages of the multi-stage model of theory integration play out in future criminological research.