Abstract

Scholarly views on crime, criminals, and responses to crime have varied markedly over the past three centuries, and this continues to be the situation today in the field of criminology. Through the work of researchers from many nations, criminology began to emerge as a secular field of study during the eighteenth century and was well established by the late-nineteenth century. Over the course of its development, it has maintained a multidisciplinary orientation drawing on the work of philosophers, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, and those working in other disciplines as well (e.g., economists).