ABSTRACT
It is argued in this chapter that the study of criminal behaviour has suffered from a failure, common to other social and human sciences, to integrate sociological and psychological perspectives. Such a failure has damaged our capacity to understand the human world. This chapter provides a brief and schematic history of criminological approaches to understanding criminal behaviour in order to provide a context for understanding the need for a psychosocial approach.
The chapter begins with a description of the emergence of sociology through nineteenth-century positivism that can help us understand the depth and longevity of that split. The second section provides a brief overview of various psychological approaches; the psychobiological, then the experimental traditions and lastly the clinical tradition which has been importantly influenced by psychoanalytic thought. The third section provides a sketch of some key elements of sociological schools of criminology as developed through the twentieth century. The fourth section then introduces psychosocial criminology.
