Abstract:
The future research of criminology should focus on the explanation of the total sizes of criminality in a society and societal reactions to criminality. Such a macroanalytic orientation, however, needs a microanalytic foundation. By comparative analyses of the macro-sizes criminality and sanctions can be showed that the differences in the development of crime and sanctions between societies can be attributed to different formations of causal constellations. Proposals concerning the development of multi-causal models of explanation are presented. The analysis of the macro-sizes criminality and sanctions in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1963-1985 is at the centre of this contribution.