Crime can be studied at different levels of aggregation. This contribution deals with the potential of an analytical criminology, the goal of which is to stimulate the improvement of theories explaining crime at different levels of aggregation. The point of departure in our approach is that science should pursue
“accurate” and “precise” improvement of knowledge, whereby theories are used as guidelines for empirical tests. In sociology the analytical point of view has been known for a long time, in contrast to the field of criminology. In an analytical approach to the study of crime as proposed by us, the focus does not lie upon “description”, but “explanation”, through a thorough search for mechanism-based
explanations. Such mechanisms can be studied at different levels of aggregation. It is especially important to look for social mechanisms that contribute to the explanation of associations between (structural and cultural) characteristics of observable behaviours and attitudes that are attributable to agents. Hence, crime is conceptualized as action. The key message of this contribution is that more
efforts should be undertaken to bridge the gap between the arbitrary empiricism of a variable driven criminology and the abstract writings of grand theorists. Key-words: analytical criminology, social mechanisms, micro-macro issues, middle-range theories, action oriented theory