The Prison as a Criminological Laboratory

Abstract

In this article of the early 30s, Edwin H. Sutherland defends the reasons to address the phenomenon of crime through the study of prisoners and their characteristics. With administrative objectives, he proposes to know the criminal behavior to establish profiles and categorizations of prisoners, but also in order to improve the training and skills of prison employees. Although he poses a series of methodological and technical obstacles that could call into question the validity of his approach, the author explores the way to overcome these limitations by describing some parallelisms with other research processes, and stressing the advantages of bringing the scientific method closer to study in prisons. Hence, he establishes the simile of prisons as "criminological laboratories."