Criminology Theories and Schools

Every named theoretical framework or school of thought criminology uses to explain why crime happens and who commits it: the classical and rational-choice tradition, biological and positivist theories, social-structure and strain theories, social-process theories, critical and conflict theories, and developmental and life-course theories, the six subcategories this atlas groups them into below. A theory belongs here when its subject is an explanatory model of criminal behavior itself. It excludes the individual criminologists who built or tested a theory, catalogued under Criminologists and Reformers, the institutions that apply criminal-justice policy informed by a theory, catalogued under Criminal Justice Institutions, and the freestanding abstract terms a theory may draw on, such as deterrence or recidivism, catalogued under Foundational Concepts because they cut across more than one theoretical tradition rather than belonging to a single school.