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JUSTICE BY FORENSIC SCIENCE
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Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Criminology
The scientific study of the causation, correction, and prevention of
crime.
As a subdivision of the larger field of sociology, criminology draws on
psychology, economics, anthropology, psychiatry, biology, statistics, and
other disciplines to explain the causes and prevention of criminal behavior.
Subdivisions of criminology include penology, the study of prisons and
prison systems; biocriminology, the study of the biological basis of
criminal behavior; feminist criminology, the study of women and crime; and
criminalistics, the study of crime detection, which is related to the field
of forensic science.
Criminology has historically played a reforming role in relation to
criminal law and the criminal justice system. As an applied discipline,
it has produced findings that have influenced legislators, judges,
prosecutors, lawyers, probation officers, and prison officials, prompting
them to better understand crime and criminals and to develop better and more
humane sentences and treatments for criminal behavior.
History
The origins of criminology are usually located in the
late-eighteenth-century writings of those who sought to reform criminal
justice and penal systems that they perceived as cruel, inhumane, and
arbitrary. These old systems applied the law unequally, were subject to
great corruption, and often used torture and the death penalty
indiscriminately.
The leading theorist of this classical school of criminology, Italian
Cesare Bonesano Beccaria (1738-94), argued that the law must apply equally
to all and that punishments for specific crimes should be standardized by
legislatures, thus avoiding judicial abuses of power. Both Beccaria and
another classical theorist, Englishman Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), argued
that people are rational beings who exercise free will in making choices.
Beccaria and Bentham understood the dominant motive in making choices to be
the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Thus, they argued that
punishment should fit the crime in such a way that the pain involved in
potential punishment would be greater than any pleasure in the crime. The
writings of these theorists led to greater codification and standardization
of European and U.S. laws.
Criminologists of the early nineteenth century argued that legal
punishments created under the guidance of the classical school did not
sufficiently consider the widely varying circumstances of those who found
themselves in the gears of the criminal justice system. Accordingly, they
proposed that those who could not distinguish right from wrong, particularly
children and mentally ill persons, be exempted from the punishments normally
meted out to mentally capable adults who had committed the same crimes.
Along with the contributions of a later generation of criminologists, the
positivists, such writers argued that the punishment should fit the
criminal, not the crime.
Later in the nineteenth century, the positivist school of criminology
brought a scientific approach to criminology, including findings from
biology and medicine. The leading figure of this school was the Italian
Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909). Influenced by Charles R. Darwin's theory of
evolution, Lombroso measured the physical features of prison inmates and
concluded that criminal behavior correlated with specific bodily
characteristics, particularly cranial, skeletal, and neurological
malformations. Essentially, according to Lombroso, biology created a
criminal class among the human population. Subsequent generations of
criminologists have disagreed harshly with Lombroso's conclusions on this
matter. However, Lombroso had a more lasting effect on criminology with
other findings that emphasized the multiple causes of crime, including
environmental causes that were not biologically determined. He was also a
pioneer of the case-study approach to criminology.
Other late-nineteenth-century developments in criminology included the
work of statisticians of the cartographic school, who analyzed data on
population and crime. These included Lambert Adolphe Quetelet, (1796-1874)
of France, and André Michel Guerry, of Belgium. Both of these researchers
compiled detailed statistical information related to crime and also
attempted to identify the circumstances that predisposed people to commit
crime.
The writings of French sociologist |AaEmile Durkheim (1858-1917) also
exerted a great influence on criminology. Durkheim advanced the hypothesis
that criminal behavior is a normal part of all societies. No society, he
argued, can ever have complete uniformity of moral consciousness. All
societies must permit some deviancy, including criminal deviancy, or they
will stagnate. He saw the criminal as an acceptable human being and one of
the prices a society pays for freedom.
Durkheim also theorized about the ways in which modern, industrial
societies differed from nonindustrial ones. Industrial societies are not as
effective in producing what Durkheim called a collective conscience that
effectively controls the behavior of individuals. Individuals in industrial
societies are more likely to exhibit what Durkheim called anomie—a Greek
word meaning "without norms." Consequently, modern societies have had to
develop specialized laws and criminal justice systems that were not
necessary in early societies to control behavior.
Sociology and Criminology
In the twentieth century, the sociological approach to criminology became
the most influential approach. Sociology is the study of social behavior,
systems, and structures. In relation to criminology, it may be divided into
social-structural and social-process approaches.
Social-Structural Criminology
Social-struc- tural approaches to criminology examine the way in which
social situations and structures influence or relate to criminal behavior.
An early example of this approach, the ecological school of criminology, was
developed in the 1920s and 1930s at the University of Chicago. It seeks to
explain crime's relationship to social and environmental change. For
example, it attempts to describe why certain areas of a city will have a
tendency to attract crime and also have less vigorous police enforcement.
Researchers have found that urban areas in transition from residential to
business uses are most often targeted by crime. Such communities often have
disorganized social networks that foster a weaker sense of social standards.
Another social-structural approach is the conflict school of criminology.
It traces its roots to Marxist theories that saw crime as ultimately a
product of conflict between different classes under the system of
capitalism. Criminology conflict theory suggests that the laws of society
emerge out of conflict rather than consensus. Laws are made by the group in
power to control those who are not in power. Conflict theorists propose, as
do other theorists, that those who commit crimes are not fundamentally
different from the rest of the population. They call the idea that society
may be clearly divided into criminals and noncriminals a dualistic fallacy,
or misguided notion. These theorists maintain instead that the determination
of whether someone is a criminal or not often depends on the way society
reacts to those who deviate from accepted norms. Many conflict theorists and
other theorists argue that members of minorities and poor people are more
quickly labeled as criminals than are members of the majority and wealthy
individuals.
Critical criminology, also called radical criminology, shares with
conflict criminology a debt to Marxism. It came into prominence in the early
1970s and attempted to explain contemporary social upheavals. Critical
criminology relies on economic explanations of behavior and argues that
economic and social inequalities cause criminal behavior. It focuses less on
the study of individual criminals and advances the belief that existing
crime cannot be eliminated within the capitalist system. It also asserts,
like the conflict school, that law has an inherent bias in favor of the
upper or ruling class, and that the state and its legal system exist to
advance the interests of the ruling class. Critical criminologists state
that corporate, political, and environmental crime are underreported and
inadequately dealt with in the current criminal justice system.
Feminist criminology emphasizes the subordinate position of women in
society. According to this theory, women remain in a position of inferiority
that has not been fully rectified by changes in the law during the late
twentieth century. Feminist criminology also explores the ways in which
women's criminal behavior is related to their objectification as commodities
in the sex industry.
Others using the social-structural approach have studied gangs, juvenile
delinquency, and the relationship between family structure and criminal
behavior.
Social-Process Criminology
Social-process criminology theories attempt to explain how people become
criminals. These theories developed through recognition of the fact that not
all people exposed to the same social-structural conditions become
criminals. They focus on criminal behavior as learned behavior.
Edwin H. Sutherland (1883-1950), a U.S. sociologist and criminologist who
first presented his ideas in the 1920s and 1930s, advanced the theory of
differential association to explain criminal behavior. He emphasized that
criminal behavior is learned in interaction with others, usually in small
groups, and that criminals learn to favor criminal over noncriminal behavior
through association with both forms of behavior in different degrees. As
Sutherland wrote, "When persons become criminal, they do so because of
contacts with criminal patterns and also because of isolation from
anticriminal patterns." Although his theory has been greatly influential,
Sutherland himself admitted that it did not satisfactorily explain all
criminal behavior. Later theorists have modified his approach in an attempt
to correct its shortcomings.
Control theory, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, attempts to explain how
to train people to engage in law-abiding behavior. Although there are
different approaches within control theory, those approaches share the view
that humans require nurturing in order to develop attachments or bonds to
people and that personal bonds are key in producing internal controls such
as conscience and guilt and external controls such as shame. According to
this view, crime is the result of insufficient attachment and commitment to
others.
Walter C. Reckless developed one version of control theory called
containment. He argued that a combination of internal psychological
containments and external social containments prevents people from deviating
from social norms. In simple communities, social pressure to conform to
community standards, usually enforced by social ostracism, was sufficient to
control behavior. As societies became more complex, internal containments
played a more crucial role in determining whether people behaved according
to public laws. Furthermore, containment theorists have found that internal
containments require a positive self-image. All too often, a sense of
alienation from society and its norms forms in modern individuals, and as a
result they do not develop internal containment mechanisms.
The sociologist Travis Hirschi has developed his own control theory that
attempts to explain conforming, or lawful, rather than deviant, or unlawful,
behavior. He stresses the importance of the individual's bond to society in
determining conforming behavior. His research has found that socioeconomic
class has little to do with determining delinquent behavior, and that young
people who are not very attached to their parents and to school are more
likely to be delinquent than those who are strongly attached. He also found
that youths with a strongly positive view of their own accomplishments are
more likely to view society's laws as valid constraints on their behavior.
Other Issues
Criminologists also study a host of other issues related to crime and the
law. These include the victims of crime, their relations to the criminal,
and their role as potential causal agents in crime; juvenile delinquency and
its correction; and the media and their relation to crime, including the
influence of pornography. Also, much research related to criminology has
focused on the biological basis of criminal behavior. In fact, a field of
study has emerged called biocriminology, which attempts to explore the
biological basis of criminal behavior. Research in this area has focused on
chromosomal abnormalities, hormonal and brain chemical imbalances, diet,
neurological conditions, drugs, and alcohol as variables that contribute to
criminal behavior.
criminology
Scientific study of nonlegal aspects of
crime, including its causes and prevention. Criminology originated in
the 18th century when social reformers began to question the use of
punishment for retribution rather than deterrence and reform. In the 19th
century, scientific methods began to be applied to the study of crime. Today
criminologists commonly use
statistics, case histories, official records, and sociological field
methods to study criminals and criminal activity, including the rates and
kinds of crime within geographic areas. Their findings are used by lawyers,
judges, probation officers, law-enforcement and prison officials,
legislators, and scholars to better understand criminals and the effects of
treatment and prevention.
For more information on
criminology, visit
Britannica.com.
criminology, the study of crime, society's
response to it, and its prevention, including examination of the
environmental, hereditary, or psychological causes of crime, modes of
criminal investigation and conviction, and the efficacy of punishment or
correction (see
prison) as compared with forms of treatment or rehabilitation.
Although it is generally considered a subdivision of
sociology, criminology also draws on the findings of psychology,
economics, and other disciplines that investigate humans and their
environment.
In examining the evolution and definition of crime, criminology often
aims to remove from this category acts that no longer conflict with
society's norms and acts that violate the norms without imperiling
society, although decriminalization of certain acts may be accompanied by
attempts to enforce codes of morality (as, for example, in the response to
pornography). Criminologists are nearly unanimous in advocating that acts
involving the consumption of narcotics or alcohol, as well as nonstandard
but consensual sexual acts (known among criminologists as crimes without
victims) be removed from the category of crime. In dealing with crime in
general, the emphasis has gradually shifted from punishment to
rehabilitation. Criminologists have worked to increase the use of
probation and
parole, psychiatric treatment, education in prison, and betterment of
social conditions.
The Nature and Causes of Crime
Many criminologists regard crime as one among several forms of
deviance, about which there are conflicting theories. Some consider crime
a type of anomic behavior; others characterize it as a more conscious
response to social conditions, to stress, to the breakdown in law
enforcement or social order, and to the labeling of certain behavior as
deviant. Since cultures vary in organization and values, what is
considered criminal may also vary, although most societies have
restrictive laws or customs.
Hereditary physical and psychological traits are today generally ruled
out as independent causes of crime, but psychological states are believed
to determine an individual's reaction to potent environmental influences.
Some criminologists assert that certain offenders are born into
environments (such as extreme poverty or discriminated-against minority
groups) that tend to generate criminal behavior. Others argue that since
only some persons succumb to these influences, additional stimuli must be
at work. One widely accepted theory is Edwin Sutherland's concept of
differential association, which argues that criminal behavior is learned
in small groups. Psychiatry generally considers crime to result from
emotional disorders, often stemming from childhood experience. The
criminal symbolically enacts a repressed wish, or desire, and crimes such
as arson or theft that result from pyromania or kleptomania are specific
expressions of personality disorders; therefore, crime prevention and the
cure of offenders are matters of treatment rather than coercion.
Prevalence of Crime
Crime rates, although often blurred by the political or social agenda
of those recording and reporting them, tend to fluctuate with social
trends, rising in times of depression, after wars, and in other periods of
disorganization. Particular types of crime may be prevalent in response to
specific conditions. In the United States
organized crime became significant during
prohibition. Within cities, poverty areas have the highest rates of
reported crime, especially among young people (see
juvenile delinquency).
One major category that was relatively ignored until recent decades is
that of white-collar crime, i.e., property crimes committed by people of
relatively high social status in the course of their professional or
business careers. The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and
Administration of Justice in 1967 concluded that about three times as much
property is stolen by white-collar criminals as by other criminals outside
organized crime.
Criminology is the study of
crime as a social phenomenon, including the causes and consequences of
crime, criminal
behaviour, 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 and are listed in the infobox. The
main thematic distinction has been between the:
Classical School associated with
Cesare Beccaria,
Jeremy Bentham, and others who have argued that:
- 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 sufficient severity) can deter people from crime, as
the costs (penalties) outweigh benefits.
and the
Positivist School which presumes that criminal behaviour is caused by
biological,
psychological, or
social determining factors that predispose some people towards crime.
Cesare Lombroso, an Italian prison doctor working in the late 19th
century and sometimes regarded as the "father" of criminology, 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 and by
Charles Darwin and his
theory of evolution, has been superseded, but more modern research
examines genetic characteristics and the chemistry of
nutrition to determine whether there is an effect on violent behaviour
(see
Natural Justice).
Hans 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 includes 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 e.g. social
psychologists
B. F. Skinner (1938),
Albert Bandura (1973), and the topic of "nature
vs. nurture".) Sociological positivism (the father of which is
considered to be
Emile Durkheim) postulates that societal factors such as
poverty, membership of subcultures, or low levels of
education can predispose people to crime.
Theories of crime
There are many theories, including:
Based on the work of American sociologist
Robert Merton, this theory suggests that mainstream
culture, especially in the
United States, 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 (gang
members, "hobos": urban homeless drunks and
drug abusers).
Drawing on the phenomenology of
Edmund Husserl and
George Herbert Mead,
subcultural 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 (e.g. the
Mods and Rockers in the UK in 1964), AIDS and football
hooliganism.
Controlling theories
Another approach is made by the so called "controlling theories".
Instead of looking for factors that make people become criminal, those
theories try to explain why people do NOT become criminal. T. Hirschi
(1969: Causes of Delinquency) identified four main characteristics: "attachement
to others", "belief in moral validity of rules", "committement
to achievement" and "involvement in conventional activities".
The more a person features those characteristics, the less are the chances
that he or she becomes deviant (or criminal). If - on the other hand -
those factors are not present in a person, it is more likely that he or
she might become criminal. Hirschi followed up on his own theory with the
theory of low self-control. According to that theory a person is
more likely to become criminal, if he or she has low self control (a
simple example: someone wants to have a big yacht, but does not have the
means to buy one - if the person cannot control herself - he or she might
try to get the yacht (or the means for it) in an illegal way; whereas
someone with high self-control will (more likely) either wait or deny
himself that need.
British and American subcultural theory
Following on from the
Chicago School and Strain Theory, and also drawing on
Edwin H. Sutherland's idea of
differential association, subcultural 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 subcultural 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.
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), and form the basis of
common law systems.
-
Statutes are enacted by
legislatures and reflect current cultural
mores, albeit that some laws may be controversial, e.g. laws that
prohibit
marijuana use and
gambling.
Marxist Criminology,
Conflict Criminology and Critical 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 more right wing criminologies tend to posit 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 and mores, but may be broadly classified as:
Educational programs
There is now a huge number 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 people's 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 a multi-disciplinary field;
criminologists may have degrees in criminology,
law,
sociology,
psychology,
social policy,
political science,
anthropology, or other subjects. Criminology may involve
crime statistics,
criminal psychology,
forensic science,
law enforcement, and
investigative methods; academically, these areas are somewhat marginal
to criminology.
Last changed:
08/29/06
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