In this best-selling book, esteemed criminologist Ronald L. Akers offers a knowledgeable and insightful introduction to and critique of each theory. To many students, criminal justice practitioners, and other people, theory has a bad name. In their minds, the word theory means an irrelevant antonym of fact . Facts are real, while theories seem to involve no more than impractical mental gymnastics.
Theories are just fanciful ideas that have little to do with what truly motivates real people.
This is a mistaken image of theory in social science in general and in criminology in particular. Theory, if developed properly, is about real situations, feelings, experience, and human behavior. An effective theory helps us to make sense of facts that we already know and can be tested against new facts. A New Approach to Program and Policy Analysis is a concise methods text that represents a new approach for policy program analysis. The authors, Kenneth J. Meier and Jeff Gill, combine statistics with normative concerns.