Dr Stanley Cohen argues that "Criminology is obscuring the causes of crime"

Criminologists are scientists who study the causes of crime and ways of controlling it. At a time when crime is increasing it would seem they have an important contribution to make. But Dr Cohen, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Essex, believes they are failing to do so. He says British criminologists tend to regard crime as a sort of disease for which you can find a cause in the physical or psychological characteristics of the individual.
On this analogy you should then be able to 'treat' and perhaps even 'cure' a man of crime. But this approach misses the truth that society itself creates much crime - first by tolerating inequalities of wealth and opportunity; and secondly by arbitrarily labelling certain forms of behaviour as criminal.

Dr Cohen argues his case in the theatre of the Royal Institution, London, with: Trevor Gibbens, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry, University of London
David Napley, chairman of the Law Society's Criminal Law Committee
Gordon Trasler, Professor of Psychology, University of Southampton
Dr Donald West, lecturer, Cambridge Institute of Criminology
and an invited audience
Chairman Professor Sir George Porter