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- Title
Assessing the Constancy of Crime Hypothesis.
- Authors
Edwards, John N.; Fuhrman, Ellsworth R.
- Abstract
This article focuses on assessing the constancy of crime hypothesis. According to the sociologist Michael Hughes, the researchers of Plymouth Colony findings confuse offenses with offenders, using the former to calculate the number of the latter. The author says that he and his colleagues were interested not only in how many perpetrators there were but what they did. Kai T. Erikson did not deal with this last issue because several hundred cases in Essex County records had unrecorded offenses. The Plymouth Colony records, on the other hand, are more complete, clearly delineating the offenses involved. The author says that the point he differs from Erikson is that he did not count offenders only once per time period. Rather, he assumed that during a ten-year period the offender was free most of that time to commit a further act, thereby putting additional pressure on the resources of the criminal justice system. Regarding future tests of the hypothesis, it is to be remembered that the underlying rationale behind the constancy hypothesis suggests that mechanisms of social control will remain relatively constant over time. So they must deal with each perpetrator, even though that offender may be the same person time and time again.
- Subjects
CRIMINOLOGY; HUGHES, Michael; ERIKSON, Kai T.; CRIMINAL justice system; HYPOTHESIS; SOCIAL control
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1986, Vol 9, Issue 4, p391
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00988467