Experiments in Criminology and Law

Christine Horne is associate professor of sociology at Washington State University and coeditor of Theories of Social Order.Michael J. Lovaglia is professor of sociology at the University of Iowa and the author of Knowing People: The Personal Use of Social Psychology, 2nd Edition.

• 1 Foreword2 Why Experiment Now? Coordinating Research Methods to Accelerate Innovation in Law, Crime, and Deviance3 Gottfredson and Hirschi in the Lab: An Experimental Test of the General Theory of Crime4 Deterring Deviance: Rationality and Self-Control5 Comment: Self-Control in the Lab6 Norms and Neighborhoods: Explaining Variation in Informal Control7 The Effects of Status and Peer Support on the Justification and Approval of Deviance8 Comment: Social Influence in the Lab9 Prosecutorial Misconduct in Serious Cases: Theory and Design of a Laboratory Experiment10 Constructing Focal Points through Legal Expression: An Experimental Test11 Comment: Exploring the LImits of Law12 Whither Experiments in Crime, Deviance and Law?13 Criminology as an Experimental Science14 Thinking Experimental

Experiments in Law and Criminology cogently argues for the benefits of using laboratory experiments in testing, refining, and extending theories of deviance and social control. Moreover, this collection is useful as a primer on how, when, and why to use expirements, and argues that only coordination of multiple methods - of laboratory experiments with case studies, surveys, official archives, and field experiments - promises to accelerate growth of our understanding of law and criminology. Brilliantly conceived to exemplify what it advocates, Experimental Studies is an exciting mix of creative theory, ingenious experiment, and illuminating dialogue with and among noted theorists and researchers.