The opening essay reviews the history of positivism in criminology, noting recent criticism of its perspective, and identifies contemporary trends that have strengthened the influence of positivism in criminology. Two papers review the lifestyle victimization model and major contemporary sociological positivistic theories of crime and delinquency. Another essay presents new analyses of the trends and patterns of offending in personal crimes using victim-oriented data and compares the strengths and weaknesses of this approach to other data sources. Other papers explore empirical evidence of relationships between crime and social class, community characteristics, and participation in sports. One paper considers the deterministic arguments of the early positivists and weighs their viability for understanding criminality today, followed by a paper that suggests clinical interviews as a means of supplementing positivist research. The concluding paper considers whether research questions, as usually formulated, may obstruct the focus on criminological research and crime control policy. 240 references. For individual essays, see NCJ 107373-107382.