Following an overview of theory in social context, the book discusses early efforts to "search for the criminal man," in which most social thinkers argued that the causes of crime lay in men's and women's soul, will, or bodily constitution. The next chapter focuses on theorists who argued that crime was caused by the social circumstances in which people lived. The three subsequent chapters explore theoretical models that emerged in the 1960's and 1970's to explain crime, namely control theory, which argued that social environments stopped people from breaking the law, labeling theory, which argued that stigmatizing offenders increased their commitment to crime, and conflict theory, which argued that capitalism was the root of crime among both rich and poor. Two new directions in critical theory -- feminist criminology and left realism -- are introduced as a new chapter in this edition. The final chapter explores the conservative criminology that has become increasingly popular and which again ascribes the source of crime to individual character flaws.