Violent Criminal Acts and Actors Revisited

by Athens, Lonnie H.

• ISBN13: 9780252066085
• ISBN10: 0252066081
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

In Violent Criminal Acts and Actors Revisited, Lonnie Athens returns to his pioneering work and enlarges his original explanations of violent crime, constructed from case-by-case analyses of chilling, first-person accounts. He now takes into account not only the violent act and actor, but also the community that the actor inhabits and in which the act occurs. On the basis of this expanded theory, he outlines a new policy for the control of violent crime.
Athens also tells the story behind his study, including research blunders made along the way, the violence out of which the study was born, the ongoing violence in which it was steeped, and the hostile reception it met when it was originally published. While recounting this journey, he uncovers some deeply rooted problems that still plague the field of criminology.

Author Biography

Lonnie Athens is an associate professor in the criminal justice department at Seton Hall University.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Original Study
Foreword	p. 3
The Problem: Violent Criminal Acts and Actors	p. 7
A Review and Critique of the Dominant Approaches Taken in the Study of Violent Criminality	p. 13
An Interpretive Approach	p. 28
Self as Process: Interpretation of the Situation	p. 32
When Interpretations of Situations Lead to Violent Criminal Acts	p. 42
Self as Object: Self-Images	p. 54
Self as Object and Process: The Linkage between Self-Images and Interpretations	p. 61
Careers of Violent Actors	p. 69
Conclusions	p. 98
Data on Convicted Violent Offenders	p. 101
Participant Observation of Violent Actors and Acts	p. 108
A Second Look at Violent Criminal Acts and Actors
Introduction	p. 113
The Conflicting Assumptions of Positivism and Interpretivism	p. 115
The Origin of My Interest in Violent Crime	p. 121
The Preliminary Phase: The Self and the Violent Criminal Act	p. 126
The Principal Phase, I: Violent Criminal Acts and Actors	p. 132
The Principal Phase, II: The Larger Theoretical Implications	p. 144
The Principal Phase, III: The Policy Implications	p. 155
Final Thoughts	p. 160
Works Cited	p. 163
Index	p. 173
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