Criminology as religion?: Profane thoughts about sacred values

Abstract

The terrain in and around academia is being transformed. Criminology has not been exempt, with dwindling government funding forcing greater emphasis on contract research, consultancies and even direct programme management. Various commentators have expressed concern about the future of the discipline—but what is it that is being changed? This paper explores the nature of criminology and argues that it always has been as much a moral as an empirical science. Using Weber’s sociology of religion as a model we argue that criminology has generated a variety of types, including: ‘magicians’ (whose primary concern is with ‘what works?’); ‘priests’ (guardians of doctrine); ‘gurus’ (distillers of cur..