[misterdoubt]

A minor in Criminal Justice is not necessarily a useful point of reference for the field. Most undergraduate Criminal Justice degrees are geared more pragmatically toward training police, parole officers, and such. CJ majors (and certainly minors) can graduate without ever being in shouting distance of actual criminological research.

That's not to say that the field is without problems, but what you're describing is not well representative of what we're taking about when we talk about the journal Criminology.

[classicsnoot]

A fair point, and something I considered before posting. There are a few factors that lead me to believe my experience is quite representative.

1) Every single teacher I have (5) are PhDs in criminology.

2) 4 out of 5 classes use their readings/assignments exclusively criminological research papers and peer reviewed journal articles. The fifth is exclusively case law and comments/treatises thereof.

3) Each of the 4 classes covers a rough average of 15 papers, the lowest being ten and the highest 20 or more.

4) The institution I am at is a leader in the field of criminology. In addition, the CJ program is paired very tightly with the law school.

5) The institution I am at is decidedly anti-LEO in both form and content. Though there are a number of matriculating cops and a smattering of future LEOs, the vast majority of undergrads in the program are sociology students aiming for lawschool, social work, or criminology.

I understand your point, and I would wager that it is generally true, but not for my case. TBH, it is the only reason I posted.

I also shared this article with every one of my professors, a few of the guest lecturers, and the dean of the school.

EDIT: clarity of point 02

[jeegsy]

I appreciate your taking the time to respond to this idea that somehow because you were only a 'minor' in CJ, your opinion is 'not a useful point of reference'.

[misterdoubt]

"Not necessarily". The following comment was a very useful qualification.

For reference, I was a philosophy major, and at no point would I have considered myself qualified to opine on the quality of current philosophy. Similarly, a close friend who was a physics major has now completed a postdoc in a subfield and still hesitates to make sweeping statements about the state of "physics."

And lest anyone is left with the wrong impression, criminologists are not running much of anything in the administration of criminal justice in the United States.

[classicsnoot]

As someone who has claimed to be a part of the wider world of criminology, I am a bit puzzled how you could postulate that criminologists are not deeply involved in the criminal justice structure in the United States. Criminologists have been structurally incorporated into CJ at every level of policy making and implementation. Sociologists formulate the very rules for conducting studies (via IRB), sociologists gather, collate, shape, and deliver the data, sociologists write the papers, journals, and articles that use the data, and sociologists run the bodies and organizations that advise law enforcement, government, and universities that define values, decide policy, and force conformity (A/B/C C/B/A order).

Probation over incarceration was a criminological theory made policy. Decriminalization of (x) are criminologists postulating about causal relationships. More importantly, criminologists are heavily consulted by the entertainment industry in terms of form and content.

Regardless, I feel completely comfortable to comment on the state of abysmal reasoning I see in my school. I did it to the PoliSci department for the same reasons. People who cannot define/explain the mathematical and/or computational logic underpinning their methodology have no place in relating conclusions and analysis from said studies. The methodology for encoding of life factors, interactions, and ethno-social details alone should be the biggest red flag. There are so many little biases, arguments from consensus, and cognitively dissonant perspectives that it becomes death by a thousand errors.

I hope these "data thugs" rip sociology to shreds. It is a good thing. These are all my opinions and observations, of course, but I truly believe that all of the social sciences are at an alchemical state; whoever can convince the patrons that they can cull prosperity/equality/justice/peace/wellness from the data gets the support and favor. But it is bullshit. Rather, it isn't science. Not yet. There are too many taboos, too much common knowledge, too much politicking, currently. Sociology needs to be culled in a compassionately dispassionate way by external forces, with the hope of the dross being scraped away so the concrete value, however much or little is there, can be recognized and built upon.