Sutherland and the idea of prison as a criminological laboratory

Abstract

The paper is an introduction to Sutherland's text. In it, we review the influence of Sellin and the difficulties of understanding society as a space with several cultures in conflict. It also calls for an interest in etiology, displaced in recent years by criminological approaches that are not concerned about the causes of crime, but merely about its prevention. Likewise, some of Sutherland's arguments about the suitability of using prison as a space for social research are extended and contextualized.