Wilson and van den Haag: Conservative Theories of Crime Control

Ideologically, U.S. crime control policy is stridently conservative. That’s important for two reasons. First, it is concerned with the attempt to control and prevent criminal behavior. It has little or no interest in producing a theoretical elaboration of crime and criminality. Second, "solutions" to the "problem of crime" are couched in terms of a clear separation between criminals/non-criminals, such that the behavior of the former has to be prevented or punished. Theoretically, there is no concern with the exploration of power and ideology structures in society. American crime control policies uncritically accept a “consensus-based” perspective that does not question the nature of law creation, or ask about the underlying causes of crime.