Dissertation
SEARCHING FOR A CRIMINOLOGICAL COMPASS: A REAPPRAISAL OF THEORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PARMENIDEAN MODEL OF CRIMINOLOGY
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2014
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/117194
Abstract
Criminology has enfolded a number of outliers into its paradigm(s) over the past 100 years. Most momentous was absorption of the mathematical form through the wide-spread adoption of statistics that had been developed throughout the 19th Century. While the infusion of statistics has resulted in an expansive growth of knowledge and solidified the criminologist's place within academia, it has led to a muddling of theory. Most detrimental, application of the mathematical form led to the binary treatment of theory that resultantly led to the segregation of theory, both in regards to the separation of theories from one another and the expulsion and isolation of theoretical bodies from normative criminology, in general.
Currently all historical and contemporary criminological theory is housed within either one of two mutually exclusive paradigmatic spheres as argued by Ruth Kornhauser (1978): "social-disorganization" theory/paradigm, which encapsulates control and strain theories, or "cultural-deviance" theory/paradigm, which encapsulates all cultural theories. These disparate paradigms are distinguished by various competing underlying assumptions that cannot be merged (1978; Hirschi, 1979), thereby they represent binary opposites of one another. It will be argued that this eventually led to criminological theory either being "right" or "wrong" and if it is one, it cannot be the other. Acting as a sort of "outlier machine," this has led to the effective cleaving from the field of criminology a number of "wrong" conceptualizations/theories.
Because of the binary treatment of theory, large amounts of information are effectively cleaved from a field's paradigmatic sphere and thereby become "outliers". Criminological outliers are essentially a result of picking and choosing "right" theory while simultaneously displacing "wrong" theory. To cure this dilemma a theoretical model should be developed. The end result of this dissertation is to rebuild the theoretical machine of criminology, thereby constructing a unified theoretical model of criminological theory capable of withstanding the inclusion of outliers and thereby bridging criminology's two competing paradigms. The model that will be constructed to repair the outlier machine assumes that the use of binary, such as the distinction between competing assumptions undergirding the criminological paradigm, is both inappropriate and injurious.
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Details
- Title
- SEARCHING FOR A CRIMINOLOGICAL COMPASS: A REAPPRAISAL OF THEORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PARMENIDEAN MODEL OF CRIMINOLOGY
- Creators
- Matthew J. Degarmo
- Contributors
- Faith Lutze (Advisor)Otwin Marenin (Committee Member)Zachary Hays (Committee Member)Craig Hemmens (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Criminal Justice and Criminology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 257
- Identifiers
- 99900581846001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation