Violent criminal acts and actors revisited
By: Lonnie Athens ; foreword by Herbert Blumer.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 175
Subjects: Violent crimes.; Violent offenders.; Violence.
Description: In Violent Criminal Acts and Actors Revisited, Lonnie Athens returns to his pioneering work and enlarges his original explanations of violent crime, constructed from case-by-case analyses of chilling, first-person accounts. He now takes into account not only the violent act and actor, but also the community that the actor inhabits and in which the act occurs. On the basis of this expanded theory, he outlines a new policy for the control of violent crime.

Athens also tells the story behind his study, including research blunders made along the way, the violence out of which the study was born, the ongoing violence in which it was steeped, and the hostile reception it met when it was originally published. While recounting this journey, he uncovers some deeply rooted problems that still plague the field of criminology.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [163]-171) and index.
Table of contents: title: The problem : violent criminal acts and actors; title: A review and critique of the dominant approaches taken in the study of violent criminality; title: An interpretive approach; title: Self as process : interpretation of the situation; title: When interpretations of the situations lead to violent criminal acts; title: Self as object : self images; title: Self as object and process : the linkage between self-images and interpretations; title: Careers of violent actors; title: Conclusions. Data on convicted violent offenders. Participant observation of violent actors and acts; title: A second look at violent criminal acts and actors; title: The conflicting assumptions of positivism and interpretivism; title: The origin of my interest in violent crime; title: The preliminary phase : the self and the violent criminal act; title: Theprincipal phase, I : violent criminal acts and actors; title: The principal phrase, II : the larger theoretical implications; title: The principal phase, III : the policy implications; title: Final thoughts.