LAUSR

PurposeAlthough perhaps useful in inspiring creative inquiries, this essay argues that human agency should not be embraced as criminology’s single background assumption or be its organizing concept. Positivist study of causality cannot be avoided if the criminological enterprise is to be scientific, to take seriously developmental processes across the life course, and to be the basis for progressive interventions.ConclusionsRather than embrace the limiting conception of human agency, scholars should create the new field of cognitive criminology that explores offender thinking and the subjective side of offending. Ray Paternoster’s many contributions would form a solid foundation for this undertaking.