ABSTRACT
Introduction Much of what we discussed under the heading of ‘control theories’ in the previous chapter rested on the assumption that offenders are selfinterested individuals who commit crimes when opportunities arise, where circumstances make such criminal activity seem ‘worth the risk’ and, centrally, where controls are inadequate. Such approaches differ markedly from early sociological theories, which place much less emphasis upon individual decision-making and, rather, focus on the social and cultural context in which crime is to be found. In this chapter we will examine a number of theoretical approaches which, again, differ in many ways from control theories, not least in the emphasis they place upon the meaning of crime.
