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The concept "crime" must be restricted to behavior which is so defined by the criminal law, yet assumptions of proper scintific methodology make it necessary to define rigorously the pehnomena under investigation in criminology. Owing to lack of causal homogeneity within the general category "crime" and within the legal categories designating specific crimes, these two propositions present an apparent contradiction. The contradiction can in part be resolved by definition of homogeneous units within these categories, but for complete resolution definitions of homogeneous units must transcend legal categories.
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Donald R. Cressey (1951) studied this question.
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