Comprehensive Exam Reading List

1. COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION READING LIST:
CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY
I. CLASSICAL SCHOOL
A. BECCARIA
Beccaria, Cesare. On Crimes and Punishments. [1765] Translated by Richard Davies and Virginia Cox.
In On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, edited by Richard Bellamy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Beirne, Piers. “Towards a Science of Homo Criminalis: Cesare Beccaria’s Dei Delitti e Delle Pene.”
[1991] In Inventing Criminology: Essays on the Rise of ‘Homo Criminalis’. Albany: SUNY
Press, 1993.
II. POSITIVIST SCHOOL
A. CRIME AND ABNORMALITY (CONSTITUTIONAL CRIMINOLOGY):
Historical essays of mixed quality also can be found in: Pioneers of Criminology, edited by Hermann
Mannheim. Montclair, New Jersey: Patterson Smith, [1972].
Beirne, Piers. Inventing Criminology: Essays on the Rise of ‘Homo Criminalis’. Albany: SUNY Press,
1993. Contains essays on Quetelet, Guerry, Tarde, Goring, and Lombroso, in addition to Beccaria.
Ferri, Enrico. The Positive School of Criminology; Three Lectures by Enrico Ferri. [1901] Edited by S.
E. Grupp. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968.
Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1981.
Lombroso-Ferrero, Gina. Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911.
Rafter, Nicole Hahn. Creating Born Criminals. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
B. CRIME AND NORMALITY (RESPONSES TO CONSTITUTIONAL CRIMINOLOGY):
Durkheim, Émile. Rules of Sociological Method. [1895] Eighth Edition. Translated by Sarah A. Solovay
and John H. Mueller. Edited by George E. G. Catlin. New York: The Free Press, 1938.
Mead, George Herbert. “The Psychology of Punitive Justice.” American Journal of Sociology 23 (1917-
18): 577-602.

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III. FORMATIVE SOCIOLOGY (1920–1950)
A. THE CHICAGO SCHOOL
Bulmer, Martin. The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of
Sociological Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Park, Robert E., Ernest W. Burgess, and R. D. McKenzie. The City: Suggestions for Investigation of
Human Behavior in the Urban Environment. [1925]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Shaw, Clifford R. The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1930.
Shaw, Clifford R., and Henry D. McKay. Juvenile Delinquency in Urban Areas. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1942.
Thrasher, Frederic M. “Editor’s Preface;” “Introduction;” “Gangland;” and “Ganging,” In The Gang: A
Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927.
B. DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY
Akers, Ronald. Social Learning and Social Structure: A General Theory of Crime and Deviance. Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 1998.
Costello, Barbara. “On the Logical Adequacy of Cultural Deviance Theories.” Theoretical Criminology
1, no. 4 (1997): 403-28.
——————. “The Remarkable Persistence of a Flawed Theory: A Rejoinder to Matsueda.”
Theoretical Criminology 2, no. 1 (1998): 85-92.
Kornhauser, Ruth R. Social Sources of Delinquency: An Appraisal of Analytic Models. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Laub, John H., and Robert J. Sampson. “The Sutherland-Glueck Debate: On the Sociology of
Criminological Knowledge.” American Journal of Sociology 96, no. 6 (1991): 1402-40.
Matsueda, Ross L. “‘Cultural Deviance Theory’: The Remarkable Persistence of a Flawed Term.”
Theoretical Criminology 1, no. 4 (1997): 429-52. Response to Costello, above.
Sutherland, Edwin H. The Professional Thief: By a Professional Thief. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1937.
Sutherland, Edwin H., and Donald R. Cressey. Criminology. Ninth Edition. Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott, 1924.
Sykes, Gresham M. and David Matza. “Techniques of Neutralization: A Theory of Delinquency.”
American Sociological Review 22: 664-70.

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C. STRAIN THEORIES
Agnew, Robert. “Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency.”
Criminology 30 (1992): 47-66.
Cloward, Richard A. and Lloyd E. Ohlin. Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs.
New York: Free Press, 1960.
Cohen, Albert K. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press, 1955.
Messner, Steven F. and Richard Rosenberg. Crime and the American Dream. Belmont, California:
Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1994.
Merton, Robert K. “Opportunity Structure.” In The Legacy of Anomie Theory, edited by Freda Adler
and William Laufer. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1995. Provides an
account of the origins of strain theory and its development into subcultural theory.
——————. “Social Structure and Anomie.” American Sociological Review 3 (Oct. 1938): 672-82.
Reprinted in On Social Structure and Science, essays by Robert K. Merton, edited by Piotr Sztompka.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
D. CULTURAL CONFLICT THEORIES
Erlanger, Howard. “Is There a Subculture of Violence in the South?” Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology 66 (1976): 483-490.
Sellin, Thorsten. Culture Conflict and Crime. New York: Social Science Research Council, 1938.
Wolfgang, Marvin E., and Franco Ferracuti. The Subculture of Violence. London: Social Science
Paperbacks: 1967.
IV. SOCIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS (1950–??)
A. CONTROL THEORIES
Gottfredson, Michael R., and Travis Hirschi. A General Theory of Crime. Berkeley, California: Stanford
University Press, 1990.
Hirschi, Travis. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1969.
Matza, David. Delinquency and Drift. New York: John Wiley, 1964.
Tittle, Charles. Control Balance: Toward a General Theory of Deviance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1995.
B. LIFE-COURSE THEORIES
Sampson, Robert, and John Laub. Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993.

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C. SITUATIONAL CRIME PREVENTION AND VICTIMOLOGY
Bottoms, Anthony E. “Environmental Criminology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, edited
by Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan, and Robert Reiner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Cohen, Lawrence E., and Marcus Felson. “Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity
Approach.” American Sociological Review 44 (August 1979): 588-608.
Felson, Marcus. Crime and Everyday Life: Insights and Implications for Society. Thousand Oaks,
California: Pine Forge Press, 1994.
Garland, David. “The Limits of the Sovereign State: Strategies of Crime Control in Contemporary
Society.” The British Journal of Criminology 36, no. 4 (Autumn 1996): 445-71.
Hindelang, Michael J., Michael R. Gottfredson, and James Garofalo. Victims of Personal Crime: An
Empirical Foundation For a Theory of Personal Victimization. Cambridge, Mass: Ballinger
Publishing Company, 1978.
Wilson, James Q. “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.” [1982]. In Thinking about
Crime. Revised edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1983.
——————. “Thinking About Crime.” [1975]. In Thinking about Crime. Revised edition. New
York: Vintage Books, 1983.
Wright, Richard T. & Decker, Scott H. Armed Robbers in Action: Stickups and Street Culture.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997.
D. LABELING AND SHAMING THEORIES; ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
Becker, Howard S. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press, 1963.
Braithwaite, John. Crime, Shame, and Reintegration. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press,
1989.
Ferrell, Jeff. Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality. Boston, Massachusetts:
Northeastern University Press, 1996.
Garfinkel, Harold. “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies.” American Journal of Sociology
61, February (1956): 420-24.
Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1963.
Lemert, Edwin M. “Beyond Mead: The Societal Reaction to Deviance.” Social Problems 21 (April
1974): 457-68.
Liazos, Alexander. “The Poverty of the Sociology of Deviance: Nuts, Sluts, and Perverts.” Social
Problems 20, Summer (1972): 103-20.

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E. CONFLICT, RADICAL, AND CRITICAL THEORIES
Beckett, Katherine. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. London:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
Chambliss, William. “A Sociological Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy.” Social Problems 12, Summer
(1964): 150-70.
Colvin, Mark, & Pauly, John. “A Critique of Criminology: Toward an Integrated Structural Marxist
Theory of Delinquency Production.” American Journal of Sociology 89 (1983): 513-51.
Greenberg, David. Crime and Capitalism: Readings in Marxist Criminology. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1993.
Hulsman, Louk H. C. “Critical Criminology and the Concept of Crime.” Contemporary Crises 10 no. 1
(1986): 63-80.
Quinney, Richard. The Social Reality of Crime. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
Simpson, Sally S., & Elis, Lori. “Is Gender Subordinate to Class? An Empirical Assessment of
Colvin and Pauly’s Structural Marxist Theory of Delinquency.” The Journal of Criminal Law
and Criminology 85 (1994): 453-70.
Taylor, Ian, Paul Walton, and Jock Young. The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance.
New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
Turk, Austin. “Conflict and Criminality.” American Sociological Review 31 (June 1966): 338-52.
Walton, Paul, and Jock Young, ed. The New Criminology Revisited. New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1998.
Young, Jock, and R. Matthews. Rethinking Criminology: The Realist Debate. Beverly Hills, California:
Sage Publications, 1992.
F. RACE, WORK, AND THE CHANGING CITY
Anderson, Elijah. The Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New
York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1999.
Pattillo-McCoy, Mary Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1999. (Chapters 3-6)
Sampson, Robert, and William Julius Wilson. “Toward a Theory of Race, Crime and Urban Inequality.”
In Crime and Inequality, edited by John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson. Berkeley, California: Stanford
University Press, 1995.
G. FEMININITIES, MASCULINITIES, VIOLENCE, FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF CRIMINOLOGY
Belknap, J. The Invisible Woman: Gender, Crime, and Justice.. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing,
1996.

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Cain, Maureen. “Towards Transgression: New Directions in Feminist Criminology.” International
Journal of the Sociology of Law, 18 no. 1 (1990): 1-18.
Chesney-Lind, Meda. “Girls, Crime, and Women’s Place: Towards a Feminist Model of Female
Delinquency.” Crime and Delinquency 35 (1981): 5-29.
Daly, Kathleen. “Different Ways of Conceptualizing Sex/Gender in Feminist Theory and the Implications
for Criminology.” Theoretical Criminology 1, no. 1 (1997): 25-51.
Messerschmidt, James. Masculinites and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualization of Theory. Rowman
and Littlefield, 1993.
Newburn, Tim, and Elizabeth A. Stanko. Just Boys Doing Business? Men, Masculinities and Crime.
London: Routledge, 1994.
Polk, Kenneth. When Men Kill: Scenarios of Masculine Violence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Rafter, Nicole Hahn, and Frances Heidensohn, ed. International Feminist Perspectives in Criminology:
Engendering a Discipline. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995.
Smart, Carol. “Feminist Approaches to Criminology: Postmodern Woman meets Atavistic Man.” In
Feminist Perspectives in Criminology, edited by A. Morris and L. Gelsthorpe, 71-84. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1990.
Young, Alison. “Criminology and the Question of Feminism.” In Imagining Crime: Textual Outlaws and
Criminal Conversations. London: SAGE Publications, 1996.
H. FUTURES AND CRITIQUES OF CRIMINOLOGY
Bennett, James. Oral History and Delinquency: The Rhetoric of Criminology. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1981.
Cohen, Stanley. Against Criminology. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1992.
Currie, E. Confronting Crime: An American Challenge. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Laub, John H. Criminology in the Making: An Oral History. Boston, Mass: Northeastern University
Press, 1983.
Nelken, D., editor. The Futures of Criminology. London: Sage, 1994.
Williams, Frank P. III. “The Sociology of Criminological Theory: Paradigm or Fad.” In the Sociology of
Delinquency: Current Issues, edited by Gary F. Jensen. Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1981.