Criminology (from Latin crimen, "accusation", and Ancient Greek -λογία, -logia, from λόγος logos meaning: "word, reason") is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour.[1] Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, legal sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, scholars of law and jurisprudence, as well as the processes that define administration of justice and the criminal justice system.
Criminologists are individuals who engage in the exploration and investigation of the intersection between crime and society's reactions to it. Certain criminologists delve into the behavioral trends of potential offenders. In a broader sense, these professionals undertake research and inquiries, formulating hypotheses, and scrutinizing observable trends in a systematic manner.
The interests of criminologists include the study of nature of crime and criminals, origins of criminal law, etiology of crime, social reaction to crime, and the functioning of law enforcement agencies and the penal institutions. It can be broadly said that criminology directs its inquiries along three lines: first, it investigates the nature of criminal law and its administration and conditions under which it develops; second, it analyzes the causation of crime and the personality of criminals; and third, it studies the control of crime and the rehabilitation of offenders. Thus, criminology includes within its scope the activities of legislative bodies, law-enforcement agencies, judicial institutions, correctional institutions and educational, private and public social agencies.
Modern academic criminology has direct roots in the 19th-century Italian School of "criminal anthropology", which according to the historian Mary Gibson "caused a radical refocusing of criminological discussion throughout Europe and the United States from law to the criminal. While this 'Italian School' was in turn attacked and partially supplanted in countries such as France by 'sociological' theories of delinquency, they retained the new focus on the criminal."[2] According to Gibson, the term criminology was most likely coined in 1885 by Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo as Criminologia [it].[3] In the late 19th century, French anthropologist Paul Topinard used the analogous French term Criminologie [fr].[4]
There were three main schools of thought in early criminological theory, spanning the period from the mid-18th century to the mid-twentieth century: Classical, Positivist, and Chicago. These schools of thought were superseded by several contemporary paradigms of criminology, such as the sub-culture, control, strain, labelling, critical criminology, cultural criminology, postmodern criminology, feminist criminology, Queer criminology, and others discussed below.
This school developed during a major reform in penology when society began designing prisons for the sake of extreme punishment. This period also saw many legal reforms, the French Revolution, and the development of the legal system in the United States.[10]
The Positivist school argues criminal behaviour comes from internal and external factors out of the individual's control. Its key method of thought is that criminals are born as criminals and not made into them;[11] this school of thought also supports theory of nature in the debate between nature versus nurture. They also argue that criminal behavior is innate and within a person. Philosophers within this school applied the scientific method to study human behavior. Positivism comprises three segments: biological, psychological and social positivism.[12]
Social Positivism, which is often referred to as Sociological Positivism, discusses the thought process that criminals are produced by society. This school claims that low income levels, high poverty/unemployment rates, and poor educational systems create and motivate criminals.[13]
The notion of having a criminal personality is achieved from the school of thought of psychological positivism. It essentially means that parts of an individual's personality have traits that align with many of those possessed by criminals, such as neuroticism, anti-social tendencies, aggressive behaviors, and other factors. There is evidence of correlation, but not causation, between these personality traits and criminal actions.[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]
Sociological positivism suggests societal factors such as poverty, membership of subcultures, or low levels of education can predispose people to crime. Adolphe Quetelet used data and statistical analysis to study the relationship between crime and sociological factors. He found age, gender, poverty, education, and alcohol consumption were important factors to crime.[27] Lance Lochner performed three different research experiments, each one proving education reduces crime.[28] Rawson W. Rawson used crime statistics to suggest a link between population density and crime rates, with crowded cities producing more crime.[29] Joseph Fletcher and John Glyde read papers to the Statistical Society of London on their studies of crime and its distribution.[30] Henry Mayhew used empirical methods and an ethnographic approach to address social questions and poverty, and gave his studies in London Labour and the London Poor.[31] mile Durkheim viewed crime as an inevitable aspect of a society with uneven distribution of wealth and other differences among people.
Differential association (sub-cultural) posits that people learn crime through association. This theory was advocated by Edwin Sutherland, who focused on how "a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law."[32] Associating with people who may condone criminal conduct, or justify crime under specific circumstances makes one more likely to take that view, under his theory. Interacting with this type of "antisocial" peer is a major cause of delinquency. Reinforcing criminal behavior makes it chronic. Where there are criminal subcultures, many individuals learn crime, and crime rates swell in those areas.[33]
The Chicago school arose in the early twentieth century, through the work of Robert E. 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 of transition", which was identified as the 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. The Chicago School was a school of thought developed that blames social structures for human behaviors. This thought can be associated or used within criminology, because it essentially takes the stance of defending criminals and criminal behaviors. The defense and argument lies in the thoughts that these people and their acts are not their faults but they are actually the result of society (i.e. unemployment, poverty, etc.), and these people are actually, in fact, behaving properly.[34]
Chicago school sociologists adopted a social ecology approach to studying cities and postulated that urban neighborhoods with high levels of poverty often experience a 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.
Theoretical perspectives used in criminology include psychoanalysis, functionalism, interactionism, Marxism, econometrics, systems theory, postmodernism, behavioural genetics, personality psychology, evolutionary psychology, etc.
This theory is applied to a variety of approaches within the bases of 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.[35]
Social disorganization theory is based on the work of Henry McKay and Clifford R. Shaw of the Chicago School.[36] Social disorganization theory postulates that neighborhoods plagued with poverty and economic deprivation tend to experience high rates of population turnover.[37] This theory suggests that crime and deviance is valued within groups in society, 'subcultures' or 'gangs'. These groups have different values to the social norm. These neighborhoods also tend to have high population heterogeneity.[37] With high turnover, informal social structure often fails to develop, which in turn makes it difficult to maintain social order in a community.
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.[37][38] 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.[39]
Following the Chicago school and strain theory, and also drawing on Edwin Sutherland's idea of differential association, sub-cultural 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 Sigmund Freud's reaction formation idea, suggesting that delinquency among lower-class youths is a reaction against the social norms of the middle class.[41] Some youth, especially from poorer areas where opportunities are scarce, might adopt social norms specific to those places that may include "toughness" and disrespect for authority. Criminal acts may result when youths conform to norms of the deviant subculture.[42]
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