Chapter 14: Future Directions in Criminology

List of Drivers Likely to Impact the Crime
and Justice Environment by the Year 2010

Demography

1. Overall U.S. population increases to 300,000,000.
2. Proportion of Americans older than age 40 grows from 37% to 45%.
3. Minorities increase to 26% of the population.
4. The flow of legal immigrants, increasingly from Latin America and Asia, continues at a rate of about 750,000 per year.
5. Advancing technology and a changing economy result in a disproportionate impact on less skilled, lower socioeconomic groups.

Economics

1. Restructuring of the economy continues with disruptions in some mature industrial sectors, rapid growth in the high technology and service fields, and some outflow of jobs and capital to other nations.
2. The federal budget deficit improves, but only slowly, so funding for domestic programs remains tight.
3. Economies of the nations of the former Soviet Union remain unstable.
4. Checks and credit cards assume a larger portion of consumer monetary transactions.
5. Real growth in output and income generally is slow but steady.

Technology

1. Copying technologies advance rapidly.
2. Automation of financial transactions increase.
3. Miniaturization of computers gives patrol officers instant access to crime information files.
4. Scientists discover a chemical that has the ability to break the physical dependence on drugs from which addicts suffer.
5. Gains in laser and fiber-optic technologies revolutionize organizations.

Crime Factors

1. The war on drugs of the 1990s has been cut back as cocaine use declines and law enforcement proves costly.
2. Participation of women in criminal activity increases as their societal role is redefined.
3. Handguns continue to be owned by a significant portion of the population.
4. Incarceration rates stabilize as construction of costly new prisons declines. There is an expansion of the use of probation and intermediate sanctions.
5. Disposal of nuclear and toxic wastes becomes a major organized crime activity.

Source: George F. Cole, "Criminal Justice in the Twenty-First Century: The Role of Futures Research," in John Klofas and Stan Stojkovic, eds., Crime and Justice in the Year 2010 (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), pp. 4–5. Copyright © Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1995. Reprinted with Permission.

Summary

For all but the most astute, the future is difficult to presage. It is safe to assume, however, that the future will differ from the past, and that important differences in any future criminology will involve issues of theory formulation and crime-control policy. We can get some hint of what is to come by examining postmodern approaches which, while tending toward increased realism in their view of crime and criminal behavior, generally advocate humane alternatives to traditional crime-control agendas. Some have termed such postmodern policies "restorative justice" and have suggested that crime-control programs of the near future must take into account both the suffering of victims as well as the inequities within society which promulgate criminality. Others, however, have complained that "postmodernism does not provide any practical guidance on policy. At most," such critics say, "it offers a basis for exposing possible pretenses and illusions in the pursuit of a just policy."(1) Postmodern criminology, because of its emphasis on deconstructionism, has also been criticized "for not valuing anything, and for a belief that 'anything goes.'"(2)

But those who perceive postmodern criminology as shortsighted fail to recognize that a new social order requires a new way of understanding it. As some writers point out, "[i]t is still too early to evaluate the impact of postmodernism on criminology. Yet its influence is being felt in the increased questioning of traditional criminological concepts."(3) If early signs are any indication, postmodern criminology, combined with the traditional approaches of the past, appears to offer the best hope for coping with crime and for developing a truly just society in the twenty-first century.

Discussion Questions

Note: you may be requested by your instructor to e-mail the answers to these questions to his or her office. If so, be sure to add your name (or other identifying information) to your answers, since your e-mail address may not tell your instructor who you are.

Click here for e-mail homework form!

1. Do you believe it is possible to know the future? What techniques are identified in this chapter for assessing possible futures? Which do you think holds the most promise? Why?
2. What have been the major contributions of feminist thinking to the field of criminology? Do you believe that a "feminist criminology" is possible? Why or why not?
3. What do we mean by the word "deconstructionist" in the context of new criminological approaches to crime explanation? Why do some authors say that feminist criminology is "deconstructionist?"
4. Describe the emerging theoretical approaches outlined in this chapter. Which appeals the most to you? Why?
5. Describe peacemaking criminology. What are its central tenants? Do you believe that peacemaking criminology is realistic? Why or why not?
6. What is postmodernism? How has postmodernism affected criminology? What predictions for the future can we make based upon an understanding of postmodernist approaches?

Notes

(1) Martin D. Schwartz and David O. Friedrichs, "Postmodern Thought and Criminological Discontent: New Metaphors for Understanding Violence," Criminology, Vol. 32, no. 2 (1994), p. 237.

(2) Williams and McShane, Criminological Theory, p. 280.

(3) Ibid., p. 297.

Back to Criminology Today Home Page
Back to Chapter Links

© Prentice-Hall, Inc. A Simon & Schuster Company Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Legal Statement