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For over a half century, criminology has been dominated by a paradigm—adolescence‐limited criminology (ALC)—that has privileged the use of self‐report surveys of adolescents to test sociological theories of criminal behavior and has embraced the view that "nothing works" to control crime. Although ALC has created knowledge, opposed injustice, and advanced scholars' careers, it has outlived its utility. The time has come for criminologists to choose a different future. Thus, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in life‐course criminology, brings criminologists closer to offenders and to the crime event, prioritizes the organization of knowledge, and produces scientific knowledge that is capable of improving offenders' lives and reducing crime.

Changes in the social, political and economic development of society contribute to the development of sciences. Criminology is not an exception. The genesis and the current state of scientific views on the nature of inter-scientific links of criminology, the essence of its nature, its place in the system of sciences have been considered. The attention has been focused on the fact that these problems are interrelated and remain ones of the most debatable in the general theory of criminology. It has been established that domestic criminology is developing gradually, has logical change of the system, transits from one state to more perfect state. It has been stated that throughout the history of the development of criminology, different views were expressed regarding its nature. At the same time, not only scientific concepts, but also personal views of individual scientists changed repeatedly. Attention is drawn to the fact that, so far, criminologists have not reached an agreed position on these issues. Criminology implies using of the creative approach, situation conditionality, presence of alternatives when choosing certain ways, means, methods or techniques. It has been established that efficiency of investigation of robberies and brigandage depends on correct determination of an investigative situation; proposing and refining of all possible versions; organisation of interaction of an investigator with operational units. Therefore, she is associated with different sciences. Currently, two basic concepts coexist regarding the nature of criminology, according to one of them criminology is recognised as a special science of law, and according to the other – a science of synthetic (integral) nature. It has been concluded that criminology, based on the subject of the study, its nature and objectives, integrates the knowledge of legal, technical and natural sciences. At the same time, criminology is a unified fusion of knowledge, not an aggregate of sciences, since it is not possible to single out purely legal, natural or technical sections, that is, knowledge complexes as any fixed structures, which once again testifies the synthetic (integral) nature of its origin.

This text was published as a book chapter in the publication "Praxishandbuch Open Access" ("Open Access Handbook") edited by Konstanze Söllner and Bernhard Mittermaier. It reflects the current state of Open Access to text publications, data and software in the Social Sciences.

Book Review of: Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (eds.), Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production,Liberal Democracy, and Human NatureNew York: Palgrave Macmillan 2014First paperback ed., xvii + 270 pp.ISBN 978-1-137-38835-3Price: € 31

Book Review of: Mark Solovey and Hamilton Cravens (eds.), Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production,Liberal Democracy, and Human NatureNew York: Palgrave Macmillan 2014First paperback ed., xvii + 270 pp.ISBN 978-1-137-38835-3Price: € 31

This volume surveys the resurgence of the social scientific study of ideas in politics. Leading scholars from a variety of subdisciplines in political science and sociology provide a general overview of the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues raised by social science research on ideas and politics

ABSTRACT Taking France as its example, the following article examines the relations between the disciplines of social sciences discovered during the arduous task of classifying French social sciences journals according to more specific disciplines (sociology, political science and anthropology, etc.). Based on a study of the journals' own methods of self-labeling and the methods used to classify these journals by a French assessment body (AERES), as well as the forming of journal executive committees, the article highlights the fact that the journals frequently cover a range of disciplines, without this implying the disappearance of disciplinary structures. In fact, the article instead reveals that the connections made by the journals between the various disciplines of social sciences are unlikely and disproportionately represented.