Historical Criminology as a Methodological Approach to the Study of Crime Problems

The principle of historicism as a basic methodological requirement of dialectics has not received an independent theoretical interpretation in domestic criminology. Historical criminology can be considered its emanation in modern English-language criminology, which has established itself in recent decades as an authoritative methodological approach to the study of crime and related problems. Based on several authoritative publications, primarily the monograph “Historical Criminology” by D. Churchill, G. Yeomans and I. Channing, it seems possible to describe the main characteristics of this approach. In accordance with it, historical criminology can be thought of not as a subject area of criminological research and not as a criminological school, but as a set of requirements for the study of all components of the subject of criminology. They are based on two basic theoretical concepts: “historical time” and “historical thinking”. The main characteristics of historical time — change, eventfulness, fluidity, tension and embodiment — set the appropriate rules for conducting criminological research, including: the study of criminologically significant trends in the long term; attention to specific criminal and social events not only as a point that changes trends, but also as an independent temporal unit; using the complexity principle to explain crime. In the process of implementing these requirements, it is necessary to take into account that the present studied by criminologists is a multi-layered social phenomenon that combines not only recorded events and facts of today, but also persistent echoes of the past and anticipations of the future. It is the recognition of the unity of the past, present and future that serves as the principle of adequate historical thinking in criminology.

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