One of the most difficult classes to teach, and we readily admit one of the most difficult classes to take in a criminology, criminal justice, or sociology curriculum, is a class on criminological theory. This difficulty is certainly not because of a lack of subject matter. Criminologists have been exceptionally fertile, professionally speaking, and in a very short time they have generated more than their share of possible explanations about why crimes are committed and why offenders behave the way they do. We believe that, instead, criminological theory is problematic primarily because to many students it is simply irrelevant, and irrelevant things are difficult to focus on.
We happen to think that this perception is short-sighted and mistaken. Criminological theory is relevant for the world. It tells us what we need to examine in the world in order to understand crime and what we need to change, and leave unchanged, in order to reduce crime. By explicitly telling us what we need to look at (e.g., peer groups, the quality of neighborhoods, psychological states), theories of crime and criminality also implicitly tell us what we may ignore or what we do not really need to pay attention to. Thus public policy is informed and guided by theory, even if this connection is not always made explicit. In other words, criminological theory suggests some lines of action for policy makers to take and rules out others, and these lines of action certainly have ramifications for real human lives.
As an example, consider the implications of rational choice/deterrence theory, which asserts that criminal behavior is rational conduct that occurs when the benefits of committing crime are perceived by a would be offender to be greater than both the costs of crime and the benefits of non-crime. That is, would-be offenders contemplate and........
