Oral History of Criminology

This page links to the taped oral history interviews of scholars with last names beginning with the letters A through D. Keywords are also attached to each video to highlight important themes.  These videos are listed in alphabetical order.

Freda Adler - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Jay Albanese - Philadelphia, USA (1997)
Keywords: female criminality, Book: Sisters in Crime, international criminology (Nations Not Obsessed with Crime), the founding of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University.

Ronald Akers - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Gary Jensen - Louisville, USA (1997)
Keywords: social learning theory, its criticisms, early use of self-report data, personal  accounts of upbringing, training, University of Washington, mentoring. 

Harry Allen - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Ed Latessa - (1996)
Keywords: Corrections in America, efforts to combine corrections and terrorism research, training at Vanderbilt and Ohio State (Walter Reckless), mentoring.

Gregg Barak - Oral History of Criminology
Interviewed by Robert Bohm - Baltimore, MD (2019)
Keywords: UC-Berkeley, Eastern Michgan University, American Society of Criminology, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, critical criminology, radical criminology, white-collar and corporate crime, Herman Schwendinger, state crime, homelessness.

Tom Barker - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Jay Albanese - New Orleans, LA (2018)
Keywords: policing, Alabama, Mississippi, police corruption, outlaw motorcycle gangs, organized crime, writing, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, oralhistoryofcriminology.org 

Howard S. Becker - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Brendan Dooley - San Francisco (2015)
Kewords: Sociology of deviance, symbolic interactionism, music, piano, marijuana, University of Chicago, labeling, The Outsiders, Erving Goffman, micro versus macro approaches, qualitative research, institutional review boards (IRB).

Joanne Belknap - Oral History of Criminology
Interviewed by Helen Eigenberg - Atlanta (2018)
Keywords: University of Colorado, Michigan State University, University of Cincinnati, ethnic studies, mentoring, corrections, prisons, domestic violence, childhood trauma impacts, violence against women, mental illness and jail, gender, race, intersectionality, American Society of Criminology.

Donald Black - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Brendan Dooley - Charlottesville, VA (2015)
Keywords: Yale University, police conduct, behavior of law, sociology of knowledge, pure sociology, social structure, social control, theory in sociology and criminology.

 Alfred Blumstein - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Robert Sampson - USA (2003)
Keywords: President's Crime Commission (1967), operations research in criminal justice, career criminal research, racial disparities in prison, research collaborators.

Dorothy Bracey - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Donna Hale - Louisville, USA (1997)
Keywords: policing, functional approach to studying police corruption, qualitative research in criminal justice, studying at Harvard University. 

Robert Bursik - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Brendan Dooley - Washington, D.C., (2011)
Keywords: Chicago School, social disorganization, Shaw & McKay, Rutgers, University of Chicago, neighborhood research.

 William Chambliss - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Mark Hamm - Chicago, USA (1996)
Training at UCLA and Indiana University, qualitative work (Box Man, On the Take, and “The Saints and the Roughnecks”), Law, Order and Power, working within the critical criminology tradition, the War on Drugs, state organized crime.

Meda Chesney-Lind - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Merry Morash - San Francisco, USA (2014)
Keywords: USA, girls and delinquency, juvenile justice system, labelling, aggression, feminist scholars.
Student Panel with Meda Chesney-Lind

Roland Chilton - Oral History of Criminology
interviewed by Wenona Rymond-Richmond - Atlanta, USA (2013)
Keywords: USA, urban crime trends, crime statistics, characteristics of persons arrested.

Marshall Clinard - Oral History of Criminology
Video 1: Marshall Clinard interviewed by Paul Friday (1996)
Keywords: Remarks on his studies in India, Sweden, Switzerland, Africa, critics of international work. 
Video 2: interviewed by Gilbert Geis and Richard Quinney - Chicago, USA (1996)
Keywords: Training at Stanford and the University of Chicago, white collar crime, international work.