Customer Reviews
Fantastic as an in-depth secondary text. Paints the individual trees in the forest particularly well. - By: Mrs Quoad, 29 Jul 2007 
The Oxford Handbook of Criminology is a very broad overview of a vast array of sources, with chapters averaging forty-ish pages & extensive bibliographies to each. It is very much a secondary analysis text to my eyes; a comprehensive collating of data that gives an overview of criminology that is second to none. The Oxford Handbook has been (for me) a far better introduction to criminology, & is written in a way that I find far more accessible. The fourth edition of the OHC is - furthermore - at the time of writing far descriptive of contemporary criminology. It was published in 2007 with the chapters being written as descriptive of contemporary criminology.
Criminological perspectives is a different beast altogether. It's aimed at scratching an itch. Yes - it is extremely comprehensive; & most of the sources it covers are snippets from original works that the OHC will build on, develop & extrapolate from. Criminological perspectives offers many of the roots which have burgeoned into the fields that the OHC covers. So - for example - the first few chapters are snippets directly from the writings of Quetelet, Lombroso, Beccaria, Bonger, Durkheim, Bentham, etc. A sizeable chunk of Sykes' & Matza's 'Techniques of Neutralization' is reproduced from 1957 without critique or commentary - it is a chunk of the original article reprinted (as a brief rummage around JSTOR will verify).
Eysenck's explanation of his psychological approach is reproduced, Becker, Hirschi & Gottfredson, Dori Klein, Felson, Bottoms & Wiles, Foucault, Currie, James Q Wilson, Jock Young (and Taylor, Walton & Young separately), Box, Stanley Cohen... The list goes on, & on, & on. All original texts reproduced in chunks of anywhere from two pages of Foucault on governmentality, up to twenty pages of assorted other authors.
The point of Criminological Perspectives - to my eyes - is not to provide the broad, removed, beautifully detailed overview & secondary analysis of the Oxford Handbook. It is not designed to be a text that paints a forest; rather it is a text that paints in the original trees in their glorious original technicolour.
As such Criminological Perspectives is not as easygoing as the OHC. It is more detailed, more challlenging, & far harder-going in places. Yet it gathers up a wealth of detail & original sources that show where the OHC has come from, & offers many of the texts that the OHC refers to time & time again. It complements the OHC beautifully because each scratches an itch that the other one is not targeted at scratching.
If a budding criminologist is only going to buy one text, I'd recommend the OHC with alll my heart. But if there's room in your walllet for a second text & you reallly are prepared to work for your degree / qualification / whatever, then Criminological Perspectives remains a fantastic & thoroughly worthwhile addition.
OU D315 course reader - By: , 21 Nov 2003 
Essentiallly, I HAD to read this for the Open University D315 course - but it has to be said it is an easy read. Seperated into key blocks makes for easy navigation & the articles included are varied & very helpful to any criminology student. I find that very few course readers are as interesting as this one proved to be, it is a reallly handy book for students(see also the Sage dictionary of Criminology - excellent too)
