The Crime–Place Chacham*

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12344
• Author: John E. Eck
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018

VOLLMER AWARD COMMENTARY

VOLLMER AWARD

The Crime–Place Chacham*

John E. Eck

University of Cincinnati

The most important thing scientists can do for their fields is to give their colleagues

a new way to see the world. Then scientists can imagine more and practitioners

can do more. Few of us will make such a contribution, but each of us should be

grateful when one of us does. I am extraordinarily grateful for David Weisburd who has

made me and many others see crime differently and has created areas of inquiry and patterns

of practice that were not possible before. For this reason, David is most deserving of the

ASC’s Vollmer Award.

David has been thinking about the geography of crime for decades, as his (2018, this

issue) Vollmer Award address demonstrates. His path to understanding the importance

of places for explaining and controlling crime provides an important lesson: Go out and

observe with your eyes. To be troubled, as David was, that the world experienced does not

fit the world in our books and papers is an important insight. It is an insight that can drive

advanced research and can lead to valuable breakthroughs.

There is another lesson for scholars in David’s intellectual journey; the journey can be

very long. It is important to stick with a problem for decades, if necessary. David’s tenacity

is another reason he deserves this award.

Some academic criminologists discount policy-relevant research. Twenty-five years ago,

Lawrence Sherman (1993), a close friend and colleague of David’s, wrote eloquently about

this unfortunate attitude. There are two problems with the idea that there is something

superior about basic research compared with applied research. First, there is nothing tawdry

about improving the world as applied criminologists attempt to do. And there is something

effete about the aloofness of the basic researchers. Second, without interacting with people

who confront crime, criminologists’ ideas incline to the flabby. This is because those who

confront crime daily have specific insights worth noting. It is instructive that David’s first

inklings that places are important came from attending to the practical problems of police.

Direct correspondence to John E. Eck, University of Cincinnati, School of Criminal Justice, P.O. Box 210389,

Cincinnati, OH 45221-0389 (e-mail: john.eck@uc.edu).

1. Wise or learned person.

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12344 C2018 American Society of Criminology 27

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 1