Discovery of Hidden Crime: Self-Report Delinquency Surveys in Criminal Policy Context

Discovery of Hidden Crime presents a history of the self-report crime survey as a method of criminological inquiry, describing how it was born within a distinct moral framework by pioneers out to show that crime was very prevalent and, therefore, normal.

This books recounts how, during the 1930s and 1940s, a handful of US criminologists discovered the method of the self-report delinquency survey - a method used to ask people directly about their crimes. Previously, criminologists had to rely on official statistics produced by the police and other control authorities; their studies were therefore constrained by the 'official control barrier', which perpetuated the notion that crime was linked to the lowest social strata and/or to psychological abnormality. By confronting the domination of psychiatrists and psychologists in the study of crime, criminologists began to challenge the punitive attitudes of society; thus, exposing the so-called white collar offenders and alerting people to see crime as something that could also be found among the middle and upper classes.

• Presents a history of the self-report crime survey as a method of criminological inquiry and its development as a powerful analytical tool
• Explores the groundbreaking effort made by criminologists to change the way society saw criminal behaviour
• Offers perspectives on the wider questions of how criminology has developed and the implications that holds for present and future study