The Origins of American Criminology by Andrew Myer

Author:Andrew Myer [Myer, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138516557
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Part IV

New Visions of Crime

10

Becoming a Peacemaking Criminologist: The Travels of Richard Quinney

John F. Wozniak

This volume is intended to explore how leading criminological scholars “came up with” their theoretical perspectives, particularly in respect to the ways in which their theoretical approaches were developed and their career paths were chosen. For each contributor, the challenge is thus to illuminate the intellectual and personal influences that led these criminologists toward their theoretical and research focuses. In this context, the current essay will reflect upon the career paths and intellectual and personal influences of Richard Quinney, who is known as one of the fifteen pioneers in criminology (Martin, Mutchnick, and Austin 1990). Quinney’s involvement in criminological perspectives during his career, which began in the 1960s, has been far ranging. In taking a fascinating and influential intellectual journey, he has traveled from functionalism to Marxist theory and critical philosophy to peacemaking criminology. Importantly, his criminological writings have created fresh vistas of envisioning crime and society. Indeed, across his career, Quinney took many controversial stands as a way to “make better sense of the world” in hope “for a better world” (Wozniak 2010: 761).

Quinney authored over 30 books and nearly 80 journal articles in his lifetime and continues to be ranked among the top ten most-cited scholars in criminology (Wright 2000: 119). In 1984, he received the prestigious Edwin H. Sutherland Award from the American Society of Criminology for his outstanding contributions to theory in criminology.

During the summer of 1985, he was a member of the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Delegation to the People’s Republic of China, sponsored by the Eisenhower Foundation and Northern Illinois University. In 1986, he earned the Fulbright Lecture and Research Award from the Department of Political Science and Sociology at University College in Galway, Ireland. From the American Society of Criminology, he was presented the “Major Achievement Award” by the Critical Criminology Division in 1998. In 2009, he attained the Sullivan/Tifft Vanguard Award for “Outstanding Service to the Academic Discipline of Criminology for the Past 40 Years.”

In order to achieve the objectives of this project, I examined many of Quinney’s criminological and autobiographical writings. I also interviewed him on the phone during three separate time frames in early November of 2008. As might be expected, other scholarly interviews had been conducted of him (Dennis 1989; Goldwyn 1971; Sullivan and Tifft 1999) as reported in a chapter of Quinney (2002) titled “Criminologist as Witness.” John Laub also interviewed him on November 21, 1996 for an unpublished oral history project co-sponsored by the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

The distinctive feature of Quinney’s phone interview—which will be referred to by the acronym “PI”—is that he was prompted to speak extensively about the central aims of this volume. That is, he was asked to discuss how he “came up with” his theoretical approaches and how his career paths were chosen from the 1960s to 1990s. Along with requesting Quinney to identify the intellectual and personal influences that

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