ABSTRACT

Three decades after it was first published, Richard Quinney's The Social Reality of Crime remains an eloquent and important statement on crime, law, and justice. The Social Reality of Crime is so well documented and thoroughly researched that it has prompted one commentator to regard it as one of the most exhaustive collections of references on crime that he had seen since Blackstone's Commentaries. The Social Reality of Crime is so well documented and thoroughly researched that it has prompted one commentator to regard it as one of the most exhaustive collections of references on crime that he had seen since Blackstone's Commentaries. The theory of the social reality of crime has also made an impact on sociology. The theory of the social reality of crime is formulated at a middle-range level of abstraction and, as such, it should be possible to test it directly with empirical data.