Epidemiological Criminology and Criminological Epidemiology: Macro to Micro, with an emphasis on the Meso

The use of ecological-level epidemiological studies of criminal and deviant behaviors trace back to the rudimentary development of sociology in the 1830s. These were the techniques employed by John Snow in the 1850s, generally recognized as the basis of medical epidemiology. As Criminology emerged as an area of interdisciplinary study, Donald Cressey (1960) called for a balance between the epidemiological (macro) and individualistic (micro) approaches to crime in order to move toward a more general theory of crime. As we move into the 21st Century, the meso-level influences of communities and organizations in the development (definition and primary prevention), maintenance, and desistance (tertiary prevention) from criminal behavior are finally taking a more prominent role. Social Learning and Social Structure Theory (Akers, 1998) provides a framework for integrating the effects of social structures, communities and organizations on individual behaviors, including health and criminal behaviors. A brief analysis of how the re-definition of behavior from a criminal to a public health problem will illustrate the need to fill-in the gap between the epidemiological and individual levels of analysis.