DOING THE WORK OF RESEARCH: WOLFGANG'S FOUNDATION AND BEYOND

Abstract

ABSTRACT Marvin Wolfgang's Patterns in Criminal Homicide stands as a model of social science research. The question-driven foundation of the work, the range of data and depth of analysis involved, and the comprehensive organization of the book make it a benchmark for future studies. Wolfgang conceptualized homicide as a complex whole, and began to disentangle the components of the phenomenon in order to understand the nature and evolution of homicide. Continuation of this tradition suggests further in-depth studies of city homicide patterns and comparative analyses of these studies. A worthwhile expansion of this work would search for a paradigm or model to tie our various theories together, would deal with the various levels of scale in homicide, and would attempt to use the thoroughness found in Patterns in Criminal Homicide in other areas of homicide study.