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This paper outlines the career of Maurice F. Parmelee, sociologist, government official, nudist, and author of thirteen books, including the first American criminology text (1918). The contents of the latter are examined and contrasts with contemporary textbooks are noted. Parmelee's career is an anomoly, for although he published abundantly, he faded into sociological obscurity. Some conjecture is offered about scholarly career paths generally, drawn out of the Parmelee case. Finally, the paper argues that historical accounts of the development of American criminology are incomplete, for they fail to mention a number of early figures, including Parmelee. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has tried to make as explicit as possible the many problems involved in creating typologies in criminology. Initially the paper presented some logical and methodological requirements for typologies in general and some illustrations of how existing typologies in criminology fail to meet particular requirements. Following this, five typologies of criminality were assessed in detail. The minimal scheme of the criminal, the victim, and the act, presented at the end of the paper, is an effort to find a universal framework for analyzing criminality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of victimization experiences and crime-related variables on act-specific fear of crime are reinvestigated. Perceived risk and vulnerability to crime were expected to mediate the influence of demographic and crime-related variables on fear. The results of this study suggest that fear of property loss is more explainable by crime-related variables than is fear of violent victimization. Perceptual variables diminish the direct impact of victimization experiences and local crime rate on each type of fear of crime. However, particular demographic and crime-related variables have different effects on fear of property loss and fear of violent crime. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on the social determinants of fear of crime among the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not unusual, in fact, it is commonplace, that in the development of a body of knowledge a particular mode of thought, while responsible for the discovery and ordering of important facts, is at the same time responsible for the obstruction of equally important truths. This appears especially to be the case in the sociological study of criminal behavior. There has been the overwhelming conception of criminal behavior (and deviant behavior in general) as behavior that is produced by a variety of impersonal, deterministic forces rather than by voluntaristic, purposive action. The former perspective found in much of criminology today results from a particular conception of man and society. The object of this paper is to explore the possibility of an alternative conception of man and society for criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]