The book Theories of Juvenile Delinquency in the West, written by Professor Wu Zongxian, the doctoral tutor of the Institute of Criminal Law of Beijing Normal University, the director of the Institute of Crime and Correction, the vice president of the Chinese Society of Criminology and the vice president of the China Youth Crime Prevention Research Association, was recently published by the Commercial Press. This book is the final result of the late-stage funded project of the National Social Science Foundation of the same name undertaken by Professor Wu Zongxian (project approval No. 17FFX040). It consists of 14 chapters with more than 650,000 words and more than 560 pages, and is priced at 180 yuan.
This book is an extended achievement of Professor Wu Zongxian's long-term research on the history of western criminology. Professor Wu Zongxian began to study the history of western criminology in the late 1980s. After years of hard work, he published the History of Criminology Western in the West (Police Education Press) with more than 1.57 million words in 1997, which won the third prize for outstanding scientific research achievements in the Ninth Five-Year Plan period of the Ministry of Justice in 1998. On this basis, Professor Wu Zongxian wrote more than 610,000 words of History of Criminology Western in the West, a law textbook for colleges and universities, which was published by Law Press in November 1999, leading to many schools offering courses in this field and being adopted as teaching materials by many colleges and universities. In 2000, the book won the first prize for outstanding scientific research achievements during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period of the Ministry of Justice. The second edition of the book, with more than 690,000 words, published in 2006, continues to be widely used as a "21st century law planning textbook". At the same time, the second edition of History of History of Criminology Western in the West, with more than 1.82 million words and four volumes, was also published by Chinese People's Public Security University Press in August 2010. In the second year, it won the first prize of the Second Excellent Academic Works Award of China University Press Book Award issued by China University Press Association, and in 2013, it won the third prize of the Sixth Excellent Achievement Award of Scientific Research in Colleges and Universities (Humanities and Social Sciences) of the Ministry of Education. On the basis of these studies, the book Theories of Juvenile Delinquency in the West was completed through continuous efforts.
This book is also the result of a specific work done by Professor Wu Zongxian after he served as the vice president of China Youth Crime Prevention Research Association. In October 2010, Professor Wu Zongxian was elected as the vice president of the sixth Council of China Youth Crime Prevention Research Association. After taking up this position, while participating in the routine work of the research society, I also had the idea of doing some basic research work. This idea was supported by the leaders of the then Party Secretary of the research society, Cao Xuecheng, and the head of the research department, Niu Kai, etc. Therefore, in March 2012, the research project was initiated, and after several years of efforts, the project research work was completed and the project was successfully concluded, forming the first draft of the book Theories of Juvenile Delinquency in the West.
Since then, Professor Wu Zongxian has continued to study and research in this field, and constantly improved the content of the manuscript by using the collected data. During this period, from September to December, 2012, he was engaged in visiting research at Yale Law School in the United States, which provided Professor Wu Zongxian with the opportunity to collect more information, enabling him to further improve his manuscript according to the collected information. After reporting, the manuscript of this book was approved in September 2017 as a post-funded project of the National Social Science Foundation. After the project was established, Professor Wu Zongxian thought about revising the contents of the manuscript according to the opinions and suggestions put forward by anonymous reviewers. At the same time, from July to August, 2018, he visited internationally renowned criminal law and criminology research institutions—The opportunity of visiting the Max Planck Institute of Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg, Germany, collected data and improved the manuscript again, and finally formed the manuscript of this book now published.
In the process of researching and writing manuscripts in this field, special attention has been paid to three aspects: (1) Pay attention to the theoretical theory of identifying whether it belongs to juvenile delinquency. Although some theories and theories are wonderful, if they are not aimed at juvenile delinquency or mainly put forward, they will not be discussed in this book. For example, the autonomic nervous system-conditioned reflex theory of German-born British psychologist Hans Jürgen Eysenck (1916-1997) and so on. (2) Pay attention to the universality of the theory and research. The important motivation for Chinese people to study western countries' theories and theories is to learn from western countries' research elements that can be used to solve China's problems. Therefore, those theories and studies that explain the unique phenomenon of juvenile delinquency in western countries are not discussed in this book. For example, simply compare the theories and research of white juvenile delinquency and black juvenile delinquency. (3) Pay more attention to contemporary theories and avoid paying too much attention to the phenomenon of early history. This book is not a book on the history of juvenile delinquency theory. It does not deliberately spend a lot of ink and energy on tracing the historical development of the theory, but focuses on the discussion of the content of the theory itself. However, we also paid attention to the early important academic contributions, and set up a special chapter "Early Juvenile Delinquency Theory" to discuss the theory of William Morrison (1852-1943), a famous British priest and criminologist, and the research results of Cyril Burt (1883-1971).
The text of this book is divided into 14 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction, which discusses juvenile delinquency and related concepts (including juvenile delinquency, identity crime, deviant behavior, etc.), demographic and psychological characteristics of juvenile delinquency, and an overview of juvenile delinquency theory in western countries. Chapter 2, Early Juvenile Delinquency Theory, discusses two representative theories and related situations developed in western countries in the early stage, including Douglas Morrison and his juvenile criminology in Britain and Cyril Bert's juvenile delinquency theory in Britain. Chapter 3, Biological research, discusses the theories and theories put forward when using biological theories and methods to study juvenile delinquency. Firstly, it discusses the early juvenile criminal biology's theory, especially the theory about the relationship between criminal family, moron and juvenile delinquency. Then, it discusses the recent juvenile criminal biology theory, including heredity and crime, twins and crime investigation, physique and juvenile crime, brain injury and crime, diet and juvenile crime, chemical poisoning and juvenile crime research, etc. Chapter 4, psychoanalytic theory, discusses the theoretical theories put forward in the process of studying the causes of juvenile delinquency by using psychoanalytic principles. First of all, it introduces the basic principles of psychoanalysis and the basic views on the causes of juvenile delinquency. Then, it discusses the representative psychoanalytic theories, including the research of William Healy and others, the theory of August Aichhorn, the research of Franz Alexander and other psychoanalytic studies. Chapter 5, Social Psychology Theory, discusses the theoretical theories put forward in the process of studying the causes of juvenile delinquency from the perspective of social psychology. Firstly, it discusses the different communication theory put forward by American criminologist Edwin Sutherland and the revision and development of different communication theory by other scholars. Secondly, it discusses the theory of the causes of juvenile delinquency put forward by Gresham Sykes and David Matza. Then, it discusses the social learning theory. Chapter 6, Other psychological theories, discusses three other psychological theories of juvenile delinquency, including personal characteristics theory (intelligence and crime theory, general personality trait theory, self-concept theory), personal development theory (moral development theory, interpersonal maturity theory, personality maturity view), psychiatry theory (personality disorder theory, psychopathy and social morbidity theory, conduct disorder view). Chapter 7, Sociological Theory and Research of Chicago School, discusses the general situation of sociological theory of juvenile delinquency and Chicago School and its research. Chapter 8, Tension Theory, discusses several representative juvenile delinquency tension theories, including Robert King Merton’s anomie theory, Richard Cloward's and Lloyd Ohlin's different opportunities theory and other tension theories. Chapter 9, Cultural Deviant Theory, discusses the basic situation of cultural deviant theory and several representative cultural deviant theories, including Albert Cohen's juvenile delinquency subculture theory, Walter B. Miller's lower class culture theory and other cultural deviant theories. Chapter 10, Control Theory, discusses the basic situation of control theory and several representative control theories, including the early control theories, Walter C. Reckless' containment theory, Travis Hirschi's social control theory and self-control theory. Chapter 11 discusses the basic situation of this kind of theory, several representative theories, policy suggestions of labeling theory and different evaluations of labeling theory. Chapter 12, Development Theory, first of all, discusses the basic situation of development theory, including its name and meaning, brief development history, development theory and age-crime curve, overview of potential trait theory and overview of trajectory theory. Then, it discusses several representative development theories, including life process theory and other theories. Finally, it discusses the main consensus and controversial issues of development and life process theory. Chapter 13: Other theories. Firstly, it discusses the integration theory, including the basic situation of integration theory, the integration tension-control view of Delbert S. Elliott and others, and the interaction theory of Terence Thornberry. Then, it discusses the representative conflict theory. Finally, it discusses the theory of juvenile delinquency. Chapter 14 is a brief summary. Firstly, it discusses the basic consensus of theoretical research on juvenile delinquency in the west. Then, it discusses the main characteristics of theoretical research on juvenile delinquency in the west.
After that, there are main references, comparison table of names and translations and postscript.
This book may be the first monograph in Chinese mainland that systematically discusses juvenile delinquency theory in western countries. The publication of this book is helpful to systematically understand the western juvenile delinquency theories and theories, and can provide reference for us to promote our academic research and related practice on the basis of foreign research achievements.
The brief catalogue of this book is as follows:
Chapter 1 Preface
Section I Juvenile delinquency and related concepts
Section II Main characteristics of juvenile delinquency
Section III Summary of juvenile delinquency theory
Chapter 2 Early juvenile delinquency theory
Section I Douglas Morrison and his juvenile delinquency theory
Section II Cyril Burt's Juvenile Delinquency Theory
Chapter 3 Biological research
Section I Early theory
Section II Recent research
Chapter 4 Psychoanalytic theory
Section I Overview of psychoanalysis theory
Section II Research by William Healy and others
Section III August Aichhorn's theory
Section IV Research by Franc Alexander and others
Section V Other psychoanalytic studies
Chapter 5 Social psychology theory
Section I Sutherland and his different communication theories
Section II Psykos and Matza's theory
Section III Social learning theory
Chapter 6 Other psychological theories
Section I Personal characteristic theory
Section II Personal development theory
Section III Psychiatric theory
Chapter 7 Sociological Theory and the Research of Chicago School
Section I An overview of sociological theory of juvenile delinquency
Section II Chicago School and Its Research
Chapter 8 Tension theory
Section I Robert King Merton's Anomie Theory
Section II Cloward and Olin's Different Opportunity Theory
Section III Other tension theories
Chapter 9 Cultural deviant theory
Section I Summary
Section II Albert Cohen's Subculture Theory of Juvenile Delinquency
Section III Walter Miller's Theory of Lower Class Culture
Section IV Other cultural deviant theories
Chapter 10 Control theory
Section I Summary
Section II Early control theory viewpoint
Section III Walter Reckless’ containment theory
Section IV Travis Hirschi's theory of social control
Section V Self-control theory
Chapter 11 Stick to labeling theory
Section I Summary
Section II Stick to labeling theory's main theory
Section III A brief evaluation of labeling theory
Section IV Post labeling theory's policy suggestions
Chapter 12 Development theory
Section I Overview of development theory
Section II Life process theory
Section III Other theories of development theory
Section IV A summary of the theory of development and life process
Chapter 13 Other theories
Section I Integration theory
Section II Conflict theory
Section III Teenage crime theory
Chapter 14 Brief summary
Section I The Basic Consensus of Western Juvenile Delinquency Theory Research
Section II Main Characteristics of Western Juvenile Delinquency Theory Research
Main references
Name translation comparison table
Postscript
