Criminology (from Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. With the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages, have inherited and crīmen, "accusation"; and Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC–6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (" -λογία, -logia -logy is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek language ending in -λογία . The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French -logie, which was in turn inherited from the Latin -logia) is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic experimental observations and rigorous formulations. (E. D. Klemke, R. Hollinger,, drawing especially upon the research of sociologists Sociology is the study of human societies. It is a social science (with which it is informally synonymous) that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge on human social activity, often with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare. Subject matter (particularly in the sociology of deviance Deviance describes actions or behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., nose-picking). It is the remit of psychologists, sociologists and criminologists to study how these norms are created; how they change over time; and how they are enforced) and psychologists Psychology is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In addition or opposition to employing scientific methods, psychologists often rely upon symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, albeit less frequently than other social sciences such as sociology, as well as on writings in law Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related. Areas of research in criminology include the incidence, forms, causes and consequences of crime, as well as social and governmental regulations and reaction to crime. For studying the distribution and causes of crime, criminology mainly relies upon quantitative methods Since the inception of the discipline, quantitative methods have provided the primary research methods for studying the distribution and causes of crime. Quantitative methods provide numerous ways to obtain data that are useful to many aspects of society. The use of quantitative methods such as survey research, field research, and evaluation. The term "criminology" was coined in 1885 by Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo Raffaele Garofalo was an Italian jurist and a student of Cesare Lombroso. He rejected the doctrine of free will and supported the position that crime can be understood only if it is studied by scientific methods. He attempted to formulate a sociological definition of crime that would designate those acts which can be repressed by punishment. These as criminologia. Around the same time, French anthropologist Paul Topinard used the analogous French term criminologie.[1]

Contents

Schools of thought

In the mid-18th century, criminology arose as social philosophers Social philosophy is the philosophical study of questions about social behavior . Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contract to criteria for revolution, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of science on culture, from changes in human demographics gave thought to crime and concepts of law. Over time, several schools of thought have developed.

Classical School

The Classical School The Classical School in criminology is usually a reference to the eighteenth-century work during the Enlightenment by the utilitarian and social contract philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria. Their interests lay in the system of criminal justice and penology and, indirectly through the proposition that "man is a calculating animal&, which developed in the mid 18th century, was based on utilitarian Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome philosophy. Cesare Beccaria Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria-Bonesana was an Italian philosopher and politician best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology, author of On Crimes and Punishments Dei delitti e delle pene is a seminal treatise on legal reform written by the Italian philosopher and thinker Cesare Beccaria between 1763 and 1764 (1763-64), Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of Samuel Bentham. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism and his opposition to the ideas of natural law and, inventor of the panopticon The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an, and other classical school philosophers argued that (1) people have free will to choose how to act. (2) Deterrence is based upon the notion of the human being as 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 (3) Punishment Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal or property, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behavior deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles (of sufficient severity) can deter people from crime, as the costs (penalties) outweigh benefits, and that severity of punishment should be proportionate to the crime.[2] (4) The more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring criminal behavior. The Classical school of thought came about at a time when major reform in penology Penology is a section of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various society in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offenses occurred, with prisons A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Prisons are conventionally developed as a form of punishment. Also, this time period saw many legal Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related reforms, the French Revolution The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and, and the development of the legal system The law of the United States consists of many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the United States Constitution, the foundation of the federal government of the United States. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of constitutional acts of Congress, constitutional in the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the.

Positivist School

The Positivist School In criminology, the Positivist School has attempted to find scientific objectivity for the measurement and quantification of criminal behavior. As the scientific method became the major paradigm in the search for all knowledge, the Classical School's social philosophy was replaced by the quest for scientific laws that would be discovered by presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external factors outside of the individual's control. The scientific method Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of was introduced and applied to study human behavior. Positivism can be broken up into three segments which include biological Biology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. The term biology in its modern sense appears to have been introduced independently by Karl Friedrich Burdach (1800), Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (Biologie oder, psychological Psychology is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In addition or opposition to employing scientific methods, psychologists often rely upon symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, albeit less frequently than other social sciences such as sociology and social positivism In social science, sociological positivism refers to an epistemological approach, closely associated with naturalism and the scientific method, which attempts to analyse the social realm through empirical means. Positivist methods are in this sense predominantly "quantitative", producing numerical data to draw inferences across a.

Italian School

Cesare Lombroso Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from physiognomy, early eugenics, psychiatry and Social Darwinism,, 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 and founder of the Italian school of criminology The Italian school of criminology was founded at the end of the 19th century by Cesare Lombroso and two of his Italian disciples, Enrico Ferri (1856–1929) and Raffaele Garofalo (1851–1934).[3] Lombroso took a scientific approach, insisting on empirical evidence, for studying crime.[4] Considered as the founder of criminal anthropology, he suggested that physiological traits such as the measurements of one's cheek bones or hairline, or a cleft palate, considered to be throwbacks to Neanderthal The Neanderthal (pronounced /niˈændərtɑːl/, /ni(ː)ˈændərθɔːl/), or /neɪˈændərtɑːl/), also spelled Neandertal, is an extinct member of the Homo genus that is known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia. Neanderthals are either classified as a subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens man, were indicative of "atavistic The term atavism denotes the tendency to revert to ancestral type. An atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations ago. Atavisms occur because genes for previously existing phenotypical features are often preserved in DNA, even though the genes are not expressed in some or most of the organisms" criminal tendencies. This approach, influenced by the earlier theory of phrenology Phrenology is a hypothesis stating that the personality traits of a person can be derived from the shape of the skull. It is now considered a pseudoscience. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century. In 1843, François Magendie referred to phrenology as "a pseudo-science of and by Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist[I] who realised that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, and published compelling supporting evidence of this in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species in which he presented his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that and his theory of evolution In biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a process that can culminate in the emergence of new, has been superseded. Enrico Ferri Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist, and student of Cesare Lombroso. However, whereas Lombroso researched the physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic factors. Ferri was the author of Criminal Sociology in 1884 and the editor for Avanti, a socialist daily. His work served as the basis, a student of Lombroso, believed that social as well as biological factors played a role, and held the view that criminals should not be held responsible when factors causing their criminality were beyond their control. Criminologists have since rejected Lombroso's biological theories, with control groups When an experiment is conducted for the purpose of determining the effect of a single variable of interest on a particular system, a scientific control is used to minimize the unintended influence of other variables on the same system. Such extraneous variables include researcher bias, environmental changes, and biological variation. Scientific not used in his studies.[5]

Lacassagne School

Lombroso's Italian school was rivaled, in France, by Alexandre Lacassagne and his school of thought, based in Lyon Lyon , often Anglicized as Lyons, is a city in east-central France in the region Rhône-Alpes, situated between Paris and Marseille. Its name is pronounced [ljɔ̃] ( listen) in French and Arpitan, and /liːˈɒn/ or /ˈlaɪ.ənz/ in English. Lyon is located at 470 km from Paris, 320 km from Marseille, 160 km from Geneva, 280 km from Turin, 450 km and influential from 1885 to 1914.[6] The Lacassagne School rejected Lombroso's theory of "criminal type" and of "born criminals", and strained the importance of social factors. However, contrary to criminological tendencies influenced by Durkheim David Émile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 – November 15, 1917) was a French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. He is considered as the founding father of the French positivist school of sociology and an early proponent of solidarism's social determinism Consider certain human behaviors, such as having a particular sexual orientation, committing murder, or writing poetry. A social determinist would look only at social phenomena, such as customs and expectations, education, and interpersonal interactions, to decide whether or not a given person would exhibit any of these behaviors. They would, it did not reject biological factors. Indeed, Lacassagne created an original synthesis of both tendencies, influenced by positivism Positivism is a philosophy which holds the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on actual sense experience. Though the positivist approach has been a 'recurrent theme in the history of western thought from the Ancient Greeks to the present day' and appears in Ibn al-Haytham's 11th Century text Book of Optics, the concept was first, phrenology Phrenology is a hypothesis stating that the personality traits of a person can be derived from the shape of the skull. It is now considered a pseudoscience. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century. In 1843, François Magendie referred to phrenology as "a pseudo-science of and hygienism, which alleged a direct influence of the social environment on the brain and compared the social itself to a brain, upholding an organicist Organicism is a philosophical orientation that asserts that reality is best understood as an organic whole. By definition it is close to holism. Plato, Hobbes or Constantin Brunner are examples of such philosophical thought position.[6] Furthermore, Lacassagne criticized the lack of efficiency of prison A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Prisons are conventionally, insisted on social responsibilities toward crime and on political voluntarism as a solution to crime, and thus advocated harsh penalties for those criminals thought to be unredeemable ("recidivists Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior. It is also known as the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested") for example by supporting the 1895 law on penal colonies A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by locating them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to a correctional facility located in a remote location it is more commonly used to refer to communities of prisoners or opposing the abolition of the death penalty Capital punishment or the death penalty, is the execution of a person by judicial process as a punishment for an offense. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" . Hence, a capital crime was originally one in 1906.[6]

Hans Eysenck Hans Jürgen Eysenck was a British psychologist of German origin, best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas. At the time of his death, Eysenck was the living psychologist most frequently cited in science journals (1964, 1977), a British psychologist, claimed that psychological factors such as extraversion The trait of extroversion-introversion is a central dimension of human personality. Extroverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and interested in seeking out excitement. Introverts, in contrast, tend to be more reserved, less outgoing, but are also marked by a richer inner world. They are not necessarily loners but they tend to have smaller 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 Hervey M. Cleckley and later Robert Hare. He also based his model on early parental socialization 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

Sociological positivism postulates that societal factors such as poverty, membership of subcultures, or low levels of education can predispose people to crime. Adolphe Quetelet made use of data and statistical analysis to gain insight into relationship between crime and sociological factors. He found that age, gender, poverty, education, and alcohol consumption were important factors related to crime.[7] Rawson W. Rawson utilized crime statistics to suggest a link between population density and crime rates, with crowded cities creating an environment conducive for crime.[8] Joseph Fletcher and John Glyde also presented papers to the Statistical Society of London on their studies of crime and its distribution.[9] Henry Mayhew used empirical methods and an ethnographic approach to address social questions and poverty, and presented his studies in London Labour and the London Poor.[10] Emile Durkheim viewed crime as an inevitable aspect of society, with uneven distribution of wealth and other differences among people.

Chicago School

The Chicago School arose in the early twentieth century, through the work of Robert Ezra Park, Ernest Burgess, and other urban sociologists at the University of Chicago. In the 1920s, Park and Burgess identified five concentric zones that often exist as cities grow, including the "zone in transition" which was identified as most volatile and subject to disorder. In the 1940s, Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw focused on juvenile delinquents, finding that they were concentrated in the zone of transition.

Chicago School sociologists adopted a social ecology approach to studying cities, and postulated that urban neighborhoods with high levels of poverty often experience breakdown in the social structure and institutions such as family and schools. This results in social disorganization, which reduces the ability of these institutions to control behavior and creates an environment ripe for deviant behavior.

Other researchers suggested an added social-psychological link. Edwin Sutherland suggested that people learn criminal behavior from older, more experienced criminals that they may associate with.

Theories of crime

Theoretical perspectives used in criminology include psychoanalysis, functionalism, interactionism, Marxism, econometrics, systems theory, postmodernism, etc.

Social structure theories

This theory is applied to a variety of approaches within criminology in particular and in sociology more generally as a conflict theory or structural conflict perspective in sociology and sociology of crime. As this perspective is itself broad enough, embracing as it does a diversity of positions.[11]

Social disorganization (neighborhoods)

Social disorganization theory is based on the work of Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw of the Chicago School.[12] Social disorganization theory postulates that neighborhoods plagued with poverty and economic deprivation tend to experience high rates of population turnover.[13] These neighborhoods also tend to have high population heterogeneity.[13] With high turnover, informal social structure often fails to develop, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain social order in a community.

Social ecology

Since the 1950s, social ecology studies have built on the social disorganization theories. Many studies have found that crime rates are associated with poverty, disorder, high numbers of abandoned buildings, and other signs of community deterioration.[13][14] As working and middle class people leave deteriorating neighborhoods, the most disadvantaged portions of the population may remain. William Julius Wilson suggested a poverty "concentration effect", which may cause neighborhoods to be isolated from the mainstream of society and become prone to violence.

Strain theory (social class)

Strain theory, (also known as Mertonian Anomie), advanced by American sociologist Robert Merton, 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. Merton 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 realizing the dream, some of them will turn to illegitimate means (crime) in order to realize it. Others will retreat or drop out into deviant subcultures (gang members, "hobos": urban homeless drunks and drug abusers).[15]

Subcultural theory

Main article: 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.

Albert K. Cohen tied anomie theory with Freud's reaction formation idea, suggesting that delinquency among lower class youths is a reaction against the social norms of the middle class.[16] Some youth, especially from poorer areas where opportunities are scarce, might adopt social norms specific to those places which may include "toughness" and disrespect for authority. Criminal acts may result when youths conform to norms of the deviant subculture.[17]

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin suggested that delinquency can result from differential opportunity for lower class youth.[18] Such youths may be tempted to take up criminal activities, choosing an illegitimate path that provides them more lucrative economic benefits than conventional, over legal options such as minimum wage-paying jobs available to them.[18]

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. A further study by the Chicago school looked at gangs and the influence of the interaction of gang leaders under the observation of adults.

Individual theories

Trait theories

At the other side of the spectrum, criminologist Lonnie Athens developed a theory about how a process of brutalization by parents or peers that usually occurs in childhood results in violent crimes in adulthood. Richard Rhodes' Why They Kill describes Athens' observations about domestic and societal violence in the criminals' backgrounds. Both Athens and Rhodes reject the genetic inheritance theories.[19]

Control theories

Another approach is made by the social bond or social control theory. Instead of looking for factors that make people become criminal, those theories try to explain why people do not become criminal. Travis Hirschi identified four main characteristics: "attachment to others", "belief in moral validity of rules", "commitment to achievement" and "involvement in conventional activities".[20] The more a person features those characteristics, the less are the chances that he or she becomes deviant (or criminal). On the other hand, if those factors are not present in a person, it is more likely that he or she might become criminal. Hirschi expanded on this theory, with the idea that a person with low self control is more likely to become criminal.[21] A simple example: someone wants to have a big yacht, but does not have the means to buy one. If the person cannot exert self-control, 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 themselves that need. Social bonds, through peers, parents, and others, can have a countering effect on one's low self-control. For families of low socio-economic status, a factor that distinguishes families with delinquent children from those who are not delinquent is the control exerted by parents or chaperonage.[22]

Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism draws on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and George Herbert Mead, as well as subcultural theory and conflict theory.[23] 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.[24] 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).

Rational choice theory

Main article: Rational choice theory (criminology)

Rational choice theory is based on the utilitarian, classical school philosophies of Cesare Beccaria, which were popularized by Jeremy Bentham. They argued that punishment, if certain, swift, and proportionate to the crime, was a deterrent for crime, with risks outweighing possible benefits to the offender. In Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crime and Punishment, 1763-1764), Beccaria advocated a rational penology. Beccaria conceived of punishment as the necessary application of the law for a crime: thus, the judge was simply to conform his sentence to the law. Beccaria also distinguished between crime and sin, and advocated against the death penalty, as well as torture and inhumane treatments, as he did not consider them as rational deterrents.

This philosophy was replaced by the Positivist and Chicago Schools, and not revived until the 1970s with the writings of James Q. Wilson, Gary Becker's 1965 article titled "Crime and Punishment"[25] and George Stigler's 1970 article "The Optimum Enforcement of Laws."[26] Rational choice theory argues that criminals, like other people, weigh costs/risks and benefits when deciding whether or not to commit crime and think in economic terms.[27] They will also try to minimize risks of crime by considering the time, place, and other situational factors.[27]

Gary Becker, for example, acknowledged that many people operate under a high moral and ethical constraint, but considered that criminals rationally see that the benefits of their crime outweigh the cost such as the probability of apprehension, conviction, punishment, as well as their current set of opportunities. From the public policy perspective, since the cost of increasing the fine is marginal to that of the cost of increasing surveillance, one can conclude that the best policy is to maximize the fine and minimize surveillance.

With this perspective, crime prevention or reduction measures can be devised that increase effort required to commit the crime, such as target hardening.[28] Rational choice theories also suggest that increasing risk of offending and likelihood of being caught, through added surveillance, police or security guard presence, added street lighting, and other measures, are effective in reducing crime.[28]

One of the main differences between this theory and Jeremy Bentham's rational choice theory, which had been abandoned in criminology, is that if Bentham considered it possible to completely annihilate crime (through the panopticon), Becker's theory acknowledged that a society could not eradicate crime beneath a certain level. For example, if 25% of a supermarket's products were stolen, it would be very easy to reduce this rate to 15%, quite easy to reduce it until 5%, difficult to reduce it under 3% and nearly impossible to reduce it to zero (a feat which would cost the supermarket so much in surveillance, etc., that it would outweight the benefits). This reveals that the goals of utilitarianism and classical liberalism have to be tempered and reduced to more modest proposals to be practically applicable.

Such rational choice theories, linked to neoliberalism, have been at the basics of crime prevention through environmental design.

Routine activity theory

Routine activity theory, developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen, draws upon control theories and explains crime in terms of crime opportunities that occur in everyday life.[29] A crime opportunity requires that elements converge in time and place including (1) a motivated offender (2) suitable target or victim (3) lack of a capable guardian.[30] A guardian at a place, such as a street, could include security guards or even ordinary pedestrians who would witness the criminal act and possibly intervene or report it to police.[30] Routine activity theory was expanded by John Eck, who added a fourth element of "place manager" such as rental property managers who can take nuisance abatement measures.[31]

Contemporary Cultural and Critical Criminology

Today's cultural and critical criminologists[32] try to move beyond simplistic ontological conceptions of human beings as hedonistic and opportunistic 'rational choosers' whose behaviour can be manipulated by adjustments of costs, benefits, opportunities and technologies of control.

Early romantic accounts of crime/delinquency as a form of seduction[33] or proto-political resistance to the powerlessness and dull monotony of working life[34] are now being challenged by late-modern hybrid theories. These theories examine the ways in which criminals are incorporated into consumerism's value-system and fantasies, as argued by Robert Reiner in his book Law and Order[35], yet initially excluded in their economic and social lives. Combining elements of strain theory with cultural theory and symbolic interactionism, Jock Young, in The Exclusive Society[36], uses the metaphor of bulimia to depict the tense opposition between inclusion and exclusion. Simon Hallsworth and Keith Hayward adopt a similar approach in their respective works Street Crime[37] and City Limits[38], and in further work[39] Hayward reintroduces the Freudian term 'narcissism' to explain the insecure yet aggressive, acquisitive sentiments and motivations behind criminality. In Criminal Identities and Consumer Culture[40], Steve Hall, Simon Winlow and Craig Ancrum draw upon Continental philosophy and Lacanian psychoanalysis to take late-modern hybrid theories to a new level of sophistication as they explain how the dynamic tension between inclusion and exclusion prolongs the narcissistic subject throughout the life-course in an aggressive struggle for identities of social distinction expressed by the acquisition and display of consumer culture's status-symbols.

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:

Therefore, definitions of crimes will vary from place to place, in accordance to the cultural norms and mores, but may be broadly classified as blue-collar crime, corporate crime, organized crime, political crime, public order crime, state crime, state-corporate crime, and white-collar crime.

Subtopics

Areas of study in criminology include:

Comparative criminology is the study of the social phenomenon of crime across cultures, to identify differences and similarities in crime patterns.[41]

See also

Sociology portal

References

Notes

  1. ^ Deflem, Mathieu (2006). Sociological Theory and Criminological Research: Views from Europe and the United States. Elsevier. pp. p. 279. ISBN 0762313226.
  2. ^ Beccaria, Cesare (1764). Richard Davies, translator. ed. On Crimes and Punishments, and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press. pp. p. 64. ISBN 0521402034.
  3. ^ Siegel, Larry J. (2003). Criminology, 8th edition. Thomson-Wadsworth. pp. p. 7.
  4. ^ McLennan, Gregor, Jennie Pawson, Mike Fitzgerald (1980). Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory. Routledge. pp. p. 311. ISBN 0415027551.
  5. ^ Siegel, Larry J. (2003). Criminology, 8th edition. Thomson-Wadsworth. pp. p. 139.
  6. ^ a b c Renneville, Marc. La criminologie perdue d’Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924), Criminocorpus, Centre Alexandre Koyré-CRHST, UMR n°8560 of the CNRS, 2005 (French)
  7. ^ Beirne, Piers (March 1987). "Adolphe Quetelet and the Origins of Positivist Criminology". American Journal of Sociology 92(5): pp. 1140–1169.
  8. ^ Hayward, Keith J. (2004). City Limits: Crime, Consumerism and the Urban Experience. Routledge. pp. p. 89. ISBN 1904385036.
  9. ^ Garland, David (2002). "Of Crimes and Criminals". in Maguire, Mike, Rod Morgan, Robert Reiner. The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press. pp. p. 21.
  10. ^ "Henry Mayhew: London Labour and the London Poor". Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science. http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/25.
  11. ^ Hester, S., Eglin, P. 1992, A Sociology of Crime, London, Routledge.
  12. ^ Shaw, Clifford R. and McKay, Henry D. (1942). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas. The University of Chicago Press.
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