Criminal Justice Theory: Toward Legitimacy and an Infrastructure

Within Criminal Justice/Criminology, “theory” is generally assumed to be concerned with crime and crime rates. Studying criminal justice is tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, relegated to the narrow role of evaluative and descriptive scholarship. This article explores the reasons for our field’s failure to recognize the importance of developing an accessible and well‐recognized theoretical infrastructure not about crime, but criminal justice and crime control phenomena. It examines the complexity of our object of study when theorizing criminal justice and the efficacy of organizing criminal justice theory using multiple “theoretical orientations.” The conclusion stresses the essentiality of criminal justice theory, with particular emphasis on academic credibility, quality research, informed practices, and sound pedagogy.