ABSTRACT
Traditional sociology makes the difference between so-called micro-social or individual-related variables such as psychopathology and intelligence and the macro-social variables such as unemployment, poverty, and neighborhood. Other sociologists consider situational factors as being decisive for crime. The general theory of crime also states that deviance can be observed in a variety of respects, and that offenders do not specialize. With data available, the “specialization hypothesis” had, indeed, no realistic chance of being confirmed or rejected. Clinical studies, on the other hand, do not take into account all offenses actually committed during a given time, because many remain unknown. The special feature of the recruits’ cross-sectional study is that it permits analysis of the influence of a great number of variables. General theory of crime also attempts to describe what is right and wrong within the field of criminology in order to make research across the world comparable, and independent of different national penal codes.
