Criminology in Perspective: An Analysis of Trends in Normative Expectations, Research Orientations, and Policy in Recent Decades

The field of criminology has experienced rapid growth in the last three decades. During this time the field has become institutionally independent, but at the same time, the impact of criminological research on policy has been declining in the face of a populist punitive turn. These developments call for a reflexive introspective account of the state of the discipline. Using qualitative methods, we analyse the Presidential Addresses given at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) over 30 years. This analysis yields factors that pertain to normative questions, research orientations, and policy that speak to the state of the field today. We assess changes in the relative weights of these factors over time, corresponding to changes and historical developments in world affairs. In addition, we compare the ASC addresses to a limited number of recently published addresses given at the annual meetings of the European Society of Criminology. Our results critically expose trends and tensions in criminology, and point to a rise in the importance attributed to “big picture” analysis, with increasing attention to normative considerations and social context.