Description
The last major review of the history of criminology was Mannheim's Pioneers in Criminology, but it was published in 1960 and much has happened since. The criminology that was pioneered then has been transformed and our ambitions and ideas have changed. Administratively and practically, British criminology has acquired a new character which deserves description. It appears to have moved beyond its sometimes precarious childhood to become a recognized part of the life of universities. polytechnics, and government departments. Financially, precariousness has returned and there is apprehension about the future funding of research and appointments. Intellectually, the discipline has achieved a great deal and it has grown in reflectiveness. There are new historians of ideas who are starting to interpret what has occurred. But, as yet, the story has not been told and newcomers do not seem to know their past. They construct a history out of fragments of polemic, gossip, myth, and old analysis. British criminology needs a written record of its own development.
The editorial board of The British Journal of Criminology thought it timely to commission a special issue focusing on the past and present condition of their discipline. Some of the papers in the issue are essays in the history of criminological ideas. Others describe the formation of particular emphases, methods, and problems. Others are, in effect, personal accounts of major phases in the discipline's growth. Together, and perhaps for the first time in many years, they give British criminology a clear report about its own history and present standing.
Paul Rock is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
