Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan

Building Complex Temporal Explanations of Crime

History, Institutions and Agency

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Stephen Farrall

    1. University of Derby, Sheffield, UK

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Argues that the current ontological framework within criminology limits our understanding of crime and the social world and seeks to broaden it
  • Draws on theories and approaches in political science, comparative history, social theory and systems analyses
  • Explores how these theories can be applied to empirical data
  • Includes a glossary of key terms

Part of the book series: Critical Criminological Perspectives (CCRP)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction: Why Do We Need to Build Complex, Temporal Explanations?

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 1-8

  3. Recognising Complexity

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 9-28

  4. Historical and Constructivist Institutionalisms

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 29-50

  5. Why-Because Analyses

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 51-70

  6. Realistic Evaluation

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 71-88

  7. Where Have All the People Gone? Theories of Structuration, Practice and Agency

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 89-109

  8. Research Designs and Research Methods

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 111-122

  9. An Exemplar of an Institutionalist, Temporally Complex Explanation of Politics, Crime Rates, the Criminal Justice System and Attitudes in Britain

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 123-136

  10. Concluding Observations

    • Stephen Farrall
    Pages 137-140

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 141-162
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book seeks to bring understanding of both complexity and temporality into criminology. It outlines why these are important in criminological models of causation and explanation and explores them by drawing on theories and approaches in political science, comparative history, social theory and systems analyses. It discusses what is meant by complexity and introduces historical institutionalism (which is rarely used in criminology) to criminological audiences; it introduces what is known as ‘why-because’ analyses to the social sciences. This style of thinking is used to explore the causes of major transportation accidents (such as aeroplane or ferry disasters) and involves the integration of structural, organisational and agentic inputs in accounting for such disasters. Chapters on realistic evaluation, theories of structuration and agency, and research design and research methods are included with an example project based on the author's recent studies of Thatcherism which shows how these theories can be applied to empirical data. This book speaks to those interested in criminology, sociology, political science, research methods and the wider social sciences.

Reviews

A thoroughly engrossing invitation to criminologists to take history seriously. It is a compelling book, which casts a critical eye on complexity, continuity and change. Written with flair and imagination, it provides a bold, dynamic framework to challenge the existing parameters of criminological inquiry. Original, ambitious and thought provoking – this is an important and timely work.

 Eamonn Carrabine, Professor of Criminology, Department of Sociology, University of Essex

 

A timely and refreshing read from start to finish. By offering complex answers to complex problems, Professor Farrall presents a compelling vision of criminology which is underpinned by interdisciplinarity, context, temporal processes and agency. Essential reading for anyone seeking to develop and challenge their own thinking around issues of crime. 

Neil Chakraborti, Professor in Criminology, University of Leicester


‘The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living’, claimed Marx in 1852. Stephen Farrall does not think of the relations between past and present in such drastic or fateful terms. Yet he is equally concerned with the laminations of past influences on our present culture and conduct. Farrall has a rare capacity to connect quantitative observations of crime and control with an historical sensibility, and with problems of social, sociological and political theory. For these reasons Farrall is able in this book to offer refreshing new perspectives on levels of explanation in thinking about crime, and to make the topic of complexity seem not only accessible but invigorating.  Farrall encourages us to feel that we too can and should reach for solutions that are at once ‘historical, spatial, economic, cultural and agentic’.

 

Richard Sparks, School of Law, Univ of Edinburgh

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Derby, Sheffield, UK

    Stephen Farrall

About the author

Stephen Farrall is Research Chair in Criminology at the University of Derby, UK.

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation