ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there is a distinct lack of sociology of criminological knowledge. It explains that a renewed commitment to C. Wright Mills' vision of the 'sociological imagination' is the way forward at this decisive moment. In Mills the sociological imagination is conceived as occupying the intersection of biography, history and social structure. The importance of The Sociological Imagination today is that it offers a particular sensibility that is inevitably bound up with critique. However, the expansion of criminology has marginalised critical writing and reduced theory from a live contested quality that ran like a thread through all aspects of scholarship to a niche or specialism. According to the American Sociological Association (ASA), criminology and criminal justice majors now outweigh those enrolled on sociology programmes by some two-thirds.
