While conventional accounts of crime share a rational core, they are characterized by a partiality that takes a part of a process and seeks to create from it a theoretical ediface. This partiality involves either a generalization from one fractured piece of the criminal process or from a one-sided interpretation of the nature of society and human nature. In contrast, realist criminology considers the actual shape of the phenomenon, the force that brought it into being, and the forces that transform it over time. Rather than merely reflecting reality, realist criminology attempts to unpack the phenomenon, display its hidden relationships, and pinpoint the dynamics that lie behind a single criminal incident at a particular moment in time. Fundamentally, realist criminology involves an act of deconstruction. It takes crime apart, breaks it down to its component pieces and sequences, and places these together in their social context over time to capture the real forces involved in a genuine cultural synthesis of them all. 32 references.