Do people choose to commit crime or are they propelled in to criminal activity?'

... Ben Jones Monday 12th January 2004 Theory, Crime and Criminal Justice 'Do people choose to commit crime or are they propelled in to criminal activity?' Until the 1970's, historians discussing the developments in the area of crime control institutions in Britain tended to take a perspective formulated in the Whigs notion of progress and drawing on the positivist approach to crime and criminals. Crime tended to be seen as an absolute: it was largely understood in terms of theft and, to a lesser extent, violence; it was something perpetrated by 'criminals' on the law-abiding majority of the population. Improvements in the control mechanisms had been brought about by progressive humanitarianism and the sensible, rational responses of reformers to abuses and inefficiencies. Since the 1970's these perspective and interpretations have been subjected to critical examination by a new generation of social historians. These historians began to work on court records in the hopes of penetrating

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