As well as his analysis of authority and rationality, Weber's great contri¬bution to sociology was his argument that the logic of social science is interpretative, not predictive. Unlike Durkheim, he did not view society as something extra and external to individuals, but saw that society consists of the actions of its members. Human beings carry on their lives through interpreting each other's actions, and from this build up patterns of identity, behaviour and meaning which become generalized within their own lives and within a society. These stable patterns become the customs, social roles, laws and institutions that we call culture, and for Weber and the sociologists who have followed his Versteben (understanding) method¬ology, cultures must be studied by observation of the actions of individuals. Sociological understanding will take the form of interpretation of these patterned actions, and sociological theory can only be in the form of cor¬relations and generalizations: because human behaviour is always contin¬gent on interpersonal interactions, outcomes can only ever be probable; there cannot be predictive 'laws' as in the physical sciences. In relation to penal justice, Weberian methodology has given rise to a vast literature on observational studies of behaviour in courtrooms and prisons, of inter¬actions between police and suspects, and between social workers and pro¬bation officers and their 'clients' (Rubington and Weinberg 1968).