ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses major weaknesses of contemporary criminological theories. In particular, it is often not clear what the variables and their relationships are the theories consist of. For given theories, it is not clear what the relationships between the statements of the theory are – are they all logically independent, as is usually assumed? There are different versions of a theory, and we do not know which one is best. The logical relationships between the theories is not clear. Many concepts are ambiguous. There is a lack of informative content (theories often explain only whether some sort of crime is to be expected and not which sort). We do not know how valid theories are because there are few severe comparative theory tests. We call this situation a “theory chaos.” We insinuate what could be done (details are discussed in Chapter 5): compare criminological theories with a general behavioral theory which, it is argued, leads to a modification and integration of the criminological theories.
