CRIM 300W Lecture Notes - Malum Prohibitum, Dependent And Independent Variables, Tabula Rasa
30 May 2013
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Document Summary
Legalistic approach: acts prohibited by legal codes in a given jurisdiction. Deviant acts move in and out of legality all the time. A set of concepts linked together by a series of statements to explain why an event or phenomenon occurs. Developing a theory often depends on going beyond the available evidence into new and uncharted territory. If theory growth were to depend entirely on increasing observational support, no new ideas or theories would be possible . Orienting strategies: provide conceptual schemes and tell us what we should be studying, how we are to use them (prescriptive) Lack of consensus on what is theory in crim. Working definition: model of understanding or explanation about how the world works. Set of interrelated propositions that seek to explain specific phenomenon. Robinson (2004) chooses the term perspective a way of looking at the world, a way of thinking about problems . Discussion about theory, how it should be studied, linkages=orienting strategies.
