This report is the result of a study leave period of a little over three months as a Fulbright Senior Scholar attached to the Program in Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine. The main purpose for which the Fulbright award was made was to enable the writer to prepare a review of current criminological, or criminal justice, research in California in the hope that it would provide ideas that are of value to criminological researchers in Australia. A report published by the Australian Institute of Criminology in May 1981 provided an overview of current Australian criminological research and this report, even though quite different in structure, may be seen as a companion volume. The two reports should provide criminologists with a means of making useful comparisons and contrasts between the state of the art in California and in Australia.