Criminology

Criminology is the study of crime as a social phenomenon, including the causes and consequences of crime, criminal behavior, as well as the development of, and impact of laws. Research in criminology applies the scientific method to test hypotheses and ultimately develop theories that help explain the causes and other aspects of crime. Though both deal with crime, criminology differs from criminal justice in that latter focuses on the components of the justice system including police, courts, and corrections.

Schools of thought

Over time, several schools of thought have developed, including:

• Classical school
• Positivist school
• Chicago school
• Strain Theory
• British and American Sub-Cultural Theories
• Conflict theory and Marxism
• Frankfurt School
• Symbolic Interactionism
• Statistical school
• Environmental criminology
• Right Realism or Neo-Classicism
• Left Realism
• Feminism
• Postmodernism

Classical school

The classical school is associated with Cesare Beccaria, Jeremy Bentham, and others:

• People have free will to choose how to act.
• Deterrence is based upon the utilitarian ontological notion of the human being a 'hedonist' who seeks pleasure and avoids pain, and a 'rational calculator' weighing up the costs and benefits of the consequences of each action. Thus, it ignores the possibility of irrationality and unconscious drives as motivational factors.
• Punishment (of enough severity) can deter people from crime, as the costs (penalties) outweigh benefits.

Positivist school

On the other hand, positivist criminologists take a different stance. They presume that criminal behavior is caused by psychological, social or other specific, determining factors that put some people at more of a predisposition towards crime.

Criminological positivism has three main strands: sociological, biological and psychological. Sociological positivism, the father of which is largely considered to be Emile Durkheim postulates that societal factors such as poverty and education can predispose people to crime. Durkheim coined the phrase anomie, which he described as a sense of 'normlessness'; if one has no norms, they have no rules to break.

Cesare Lombroso, an Italian prison doctor working in the late 19th century, was one of the largest contributors to biological positivism, which alleged that physiological traits such as the measurements of one's cheek bones or hairline, or a cleft palate, considered to be throwbacks to Neanderthal man, were indicative of "atavistic" criminal tendencies. This approach, influenced by the earlier theory of phrenology but also by Charles Darwin's evolutionism, has been superseded. Lombroso is still regarded as the "father" of criminology.

Hans J. Eysenck (1964, 1977), a British psychologist, claimed that psychological factors such as Extraversion and Neuroticism made a person more likely to commit criminal acts. He also includes a Psychoticism dimension that inlcudes traits similar to the psychopathic profile, developed by Cleckley and later Hare. He also based his model on early parental socialisation of the child; his approach bridges the gap between biological explanations and environmental or social learning based approaches (see eg social psychologists B.F. Skinner (1938) and Albert Bandura (1973)).

Strain Theory

Based on the work of American sociologist Robert Merton, this theory suggests that mainstream culture, especially in America, is saturated with dreams of opportunity, freedom and prosperity; as Merton put it, the American Dream. Most people buy into this dream and it becomes a powerful cultural and psychological motivation. Merton also used the term anomie, but it meant something slightly different for him than it did for Durkheim; he saw the term as meaning a dichotomy between what society expected of its citizens, and what those citizens could actually achieve. Therefore, if the social structure of opportunities is unequal and prevents the majority from realising the dream, some of them will turn to illegitimate means (crime) in order to realise it. Others will retreat or drop out into deviant subcultures ("hobos": urban homeless drunks and drug abusers).

British and American Sub-Cultural Theories

Following on from the Chicago School and Strain Theory, and also drawing on Edwin H. Sutherland's idea of differential association, American sub-cultural theorists focused on small cultural groups fragmenting away from the mainstream to form their own values and meanings about life. Some of these groups, especially from poorer areas where opportunities were scarce, might adopt criminal values and meanings. British sub-cultural theorists focused more heavily on the issue of class, where some criminal activities were seen as 'imaginary solutions' to the problem of belonging to a subordinate class.

Symbolic Interactionism

Drawing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and George Herbert Mead, sub-cultural theory and conflict theory, this school of thought focused on the relationship between the powerful state, media and conservative ruling elite on the one hand, and the less powerful groups on the other. The powerful groups had the ability to become the 'significant other' in the less powerful groups' processes of generating meaning. The former could to some extent impose their meanings on the latter, and therefore they were able to 'label' minor delinquent youngsters as criminal. These youngsters would often take on board the label, indulge in crime more readily and become actors in the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' of the powerful groups. Later developments in this set of theories were by Howard Becker and Edwin Lemert, in the mid 20th century; also by Stanley Cohen who developed the concept of "moral panic" (describing societal reaction to spectacular, alarming social phenomena such as post-World War Two youth cultures (eg. the Mods and Rockers in the UK in 1964), AIDS and football hooliganism.

Types and definitions of crime

Both the positivist and classical schools take a consensus view of crime – that a crime is an act that violates the basic values and beliefs of society. Those values and beliefs are manifested as laws that society agrees upon. However, there are two types of laws:

• Natural laws are rooted in core values shared by many cultures. Natural laws protect against harm to persons (e.g. murder, rape, assault) or property (theft, larceny, robbery).
• Statutory laws are passed by legislatures and reflect current cultural mores. In the United States, such laws include those that prohibit marijuana use and gambling. When it comes to such laws, there is often great societal debate rather than consensus. Conflict criminology and related theories (The New Criminology, critical criminology, Marxist criminology) claim that most relationships between State and citizen are non-consensual, and as such criminal law is not necessarily representative of public beliefs and wishes: it is exercised in the interests of the ruling or dominant class. The mainstream criminologies, as detailed above, tend to accept that there is a consensual social contract between State and citizen.

Therefore, definitions of crimes will vary from place to place, in accordance to the cultural norms or mores.

Educational programs

There are now a huge variety of undergraduate and postgraduate criminology degrees available around the world. The present popularity of such degrees may in part be due to criminal and police television dramas that capture students imaginations, but could also be because of growing awareness as to the continuing importance of issues relating to law, rules, compliance, politics, terrorism, security, forensic science, the media, deviance, and punishment.

Criminology is an multi-disciplinary field; criminologists may have degrees in criminology, law, sociology, psychology, social policy, political science, anthropology, or others. Populary, criminology may involve crime statistics, criminal psychology, forensic science, law enforcement, and investigative methods; academically, these areas are somewhat marginal to criminology.

See also

• List of criminology topics
• Victimology
• Penology
• Crime fiction
• Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)

External links

• American Society of Criminology
• Criminology Mega-Site — Dr. Tom O'Connor (Associate Professor of Justice Studies, North Carolina Wesleyan College)
• Criminology site with a UK focus and many useful links
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
• The New Criminologist

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