Clinard and Quinney's Criminal Behavior Systems

An important classic, familiar to virtually all criminologists, Clinard and Quinney’s Criminal Behavior Systems: A Revised Edition begins with a discussion of the construction of types of crime and then formulates and utilizes a useful typology of criminal behavior systems. It classifies crime into seven categories, among them: violent personal crime, occasional property crime, public order crime, occupational crime, corporate crime, organized crime, and political crime. They examine the criminal career of the offender in each category, public and legal attitudes toward these individuals, support systems they may have, attitudes of the offenders, and other features. The discussion of each category of crime is thorough and enlightening, and takes the reader far in understanding the huge problem of crime and establishing intelligent definitions to study it.

The new edition looks at the criminal landscape of the twenty-first century, capturing both the numerous advancements in theory and research in the field of criminology, as well as many societal changes that have taken place in law, mass media, the economy, culture, and the political system that directly affect the book’s coverage of various types of crimes. A global perspective broadens the book’s relevance to include a variety of different societies. Crimes newly examined in this edition include identity theft, domestic violence, arson, hate crimes, cybercrime, campus sexual assault, police brutality, Ponzi schemes, human trafficking, and terrorism. Finally, alternatives to conventional criminal justice are considered, including such approaches as peacemaking, restorative justice, private justice, problem solving, harm reduction, naming and shaming, and internal and external controls.

Like its predecessors, Clinard and Quinney’s Criminal Behavior Systems: A Revised Edition will be essential to criminologists formulating their own theories and research on criminal behavior as well as to students in criminology and sociology courses on how to view and study crime.

A. Javier Treviño is Professor of Sociology at Wheaton College. He is the author and editor of several books including The Social Thought of C. Wright Mills (2012); Classic Writings in Law and Society, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded (2010); Talcott Parsons on Law and the Legal System (2008); George C. Homans: History, Theory, and Method (2006); Understanding Crime: A Multidisciplinary Approach (edited with Susan Guarino-Ghezzi) (Anderson Publishing, 2005); Goffman's Legacy (2003); Talcott Parsons Today: His Theory and Legacy in Contemporary Sociology (2001); and The Sociology of Law: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (1996). He received his Ph.D. from Boston College, his M.A. from Northern Arizona University, and his B.A. from the University of North Texas. He has served as President of the Justice Studies Association (2000–2002), President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (2010–2011), and was a Fulbright Scholar to the Republic of Moldova (2009).

Richard Quinney is a renowned American sociologist, writer, and photographer known for his philosophical and critical approach to crime and social justice. After earning his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin, he taught at several universities on the East Coast and in the Midwest. He is author of several books, including Criminal Behavior Systems (first published in 1967), The Problem of Crime (1970), The Social Reality of Crime (1974), Critique of Legal Order (1974), Criminology (1975), Class, State, and Crime (1977), Providence (1980), Social Existence (1982), Criminology as Peacemaking (1991), Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology (2000), Bearing Witness to Crime and Social Justice (2000), and Storytelling Sociology (2004). He was awarded the prestigious Edwin Sutherland Award in 1984 by the American Society of Criminology for his contributions to criminological theory. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Northern Illinois University.

The late Marshall Clinard was Quinney’s coauthor on the first, second, and third editions of Criminal Behavior Systems. The late John Wildeman joined them on the third edition.