ABSTRACT
The 1960s were a major watershed in the development of professional sociology. Two signal challenges emerged to the prevailing models of inquiry, one epistemological or methodological, the other political. The interpretative turn, then, affords a critique of positivistic sociology and thereby of correctional criminology. Correctional criminology takes for granted the "objectivity" of crime, rather than recognizing that "crime" is socially defined through, and relative to, the constructs, meanings and relevances brought to its definition and application to cases by members of society in the course of their routine activities. In contrast to the standard "externalist" view of the relationship of mind and reality, which posits that the two are independent of each other, all philosophical schools mentioned take an "internalist" view of the relationship. Both philosophers explicitly address Weber's views on action and social action and critically revise them in much the same way, despite differences in philosophical language.
