Bringing the Individual Back In

Abstract

The articles by Wacquant and Anderson in the present issue (1) plumb current statistical data on incarceration along with case examples and thereby draw important social policy implications; and (2) explore a detailed individual case study with the implications it suggests for devising social policies to address inner-city crime and the `code of the streets'. The highly different approaches of these two researchers - both valid - highlight the timeliness of contemporary criminological researchers reconsidering the early roots of their profession - particularly insofar as the dicey task of constructing grand theory must ultimately be grounded in the individual case. In their attempt to free themselves from the biases of ideology, contemporary positivist criminologists have policitized the field and in that process have wrought ideologically charged social harm. I propose that we rethink these approaches and once again ground research in matters that allow us to plumb such realities as the `meaning' of those actions we label delinquent and the transcendent aspects of human activity. These are not factors that easily surrender themselves to the measures of social positivism. I call for a rereading and reintegration of the thoughts of sociologists, political scientists and social theorists like George H. Mead, Clifford Shaw, W.I. Thomas, Jerome Bruner, Jürgen Habermas, and Eric Voegelin.