Criminology, History of

The history of criminology is examined comparatively for four countries or regions: the United States, Latin America, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom. Each case history considers a common set of analytic dimensions: origin and takeoff (time, discipline, political context); changing shapes (themes, theoretical orientations, data); changing organization (associations, journals, position in universities, government and nonprofit institutes); and the political-economic environment of criminology. Commonalities across national and regional developments and particularities of each region speak to the conditions of criminology. Globalization is at work, partly under US guidance, but academic exports are challenged and adapted to nation-level political, ideological, and institutional contexts.