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Lectures minor 2020 Criminology: The twilight zone between the legal and the illegal
Tuesday 1-9-20
Criminology = study of act of breaking a law, or the judicial process. Criminology as a
discipline originated in England, Italy, France and the US.
Criminology has many meanings but at its widest and most commonly accepted it is taken to
be the study of crime, criminals and criminal justice
Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes
within its scope the processes of making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting
towards the breaking of laws... The objective of criminology is the development of a body
of general and verified principles and of other types of knowledge regarding this process of
law, crime and treatment.
What is crime according to criminologists? Ongoing debate
- Sutherland: white-collar crime = people working in bigger corporations; crimes
committed by people in higher places. Social injury + possible legal sanctions –
criminal and civil
- Tappan: only when prosecuted and found guilty
→ the state defines what crime is
- Becker: crime is an act that is labelled as crime, deviance (violation of social norms),
social context matters.
→ crime is a social construct
- Schwendinger: Violations of human rights of individuals should be considered crime,
including imperialistic war, racism, sexism, poverty; Any state can make laws to suit
purposes of the ruling political party
→ moving away from state-defined acts
- Chambliss: violation of a state’s own laws, state-organized crime
- Friedrichs: criminologists must distinguish between:
o Those governmental or political actions prohibited by the state’s laws
o Those defined as criminal by international law
o Those regarded as criminal on some other criteria of harmfulness not necessarily
recognized by either the state’s laws or international law
Social harms perspective (Hillyard & Tombs – critical criminology)
→ not the law but harm as criterium
What’s different?
- Challenges power → who makes the law?
- Includes mass harms → especially caused by corporations and states
o E.g. air pollution, building collapses, climate change ?
- Allocates responsibility → incl. corporate, collective and political
- Focuses policy responses on reducing harms
• ‘crime’ as contested concept to use as basis for a scientific discipline
• Legalistic approach: formal legal definition; defined by the state; proscribed by
criminal law, state sanction
• Legalistic but beyond criminal law: also civil and administrative penalties (e.g.
corporate crime)
• Social constructionist approach: labelling : crime exists only when a particular act is
labelled as crime by the state and/or by society; should not necessarily attract penalty
(e.g. drug use)
• Social constructionist: social harm conception: some type of harm (e.g. economical,
environmental, social); harm should attract some sort of penalty (e.g. green crimes)
• Universalist approach: crime is what violates human rights – also by states
,Is it wrong / is it harmful?
Public perceptions of the seriousness of crime plays an important role in modern criminal
justice systems: sentencing, allocation of police resources, prioritizing the prosecution of
offenders, etc.
For all crimes, seriousness ratings are determined first and foremost by moral
wrongfulness and moral judgement, rather than by the potential harmful
consequences or frequency of these crimes
The public's perception of the (moral) wrongfulness of a given act often does not reflect the
perceived or objective harm that it causes.
Tax evasion is an illegal activity and it can easily get you in a lot of trouble. However, in
many situations tax evasion is tolerated from a moral point of view, e.g. receiving cash tips
or giving private lessons to someone.
On the other hand, tax avoidance is totally legal and involves tax reduction strategies,
mostly for high net worth individuals, who wish to keep more of their own money, improve
their lifestyle and enjoy numerous benefits. E.g. moving from high tax countries to low tax
countries.
• Society's perception of the seriousness or (moral) wrongfulness of a given act often
does not reflect the perceived or objective harm that it causes
• The legality and illegality of behaviour varies widely according to (national, cultural,
historical) context
• But: often reflects the interests of those with the most political-economic power
and influence
• Cultural and historical variation, but similar implicit assumption: the power to
determine what is or is not a crime resides in the nation state
Thursday 3-9-20
Learning objectives 1,2,3,4
Criminalization
Worldbank building of dam in Thailand
Floods occurred → fish disappeared, skin diseases etc. Is this a crime?
Crime can be defined in terms of:
- Criminal offences: determined by law to be a crime
- Social construction: determined by society/individuals to be a ‘crime’
Often no agreement on criminalization (soft drugs, euthanasia etc.)
,Criminologists defining crime
- Garofalo: natural crime … religious idea of sin
- Durkheim: link to culture … crime as normal and functional
- Bonger: social harm → subcategory of moral; antisocial
- Becker: crime as social construct, crime as reaction, start of critical criminology
- Hulsman: abolitionism -> restorative justice, no ontological reality
- Hegan: crime because someone criminalized it
Criminalization
Becker:
Moral entrepreneurs= a group labelling another group as criminal / outsiders
2 groups, you need both to successfully criminalize something/someone
- Moral crusaders
o Passionate about moral panics -> e.g. migration
o Think in black and white
o Rely on experts to make the laws
o Ends are more important than the means; you don’t care about how you reach
your goal, or how something gets criminalized, it just has to happen
- Rule enforces
o They will do anything to justify their own position/ their wrong behavior
o Win respect
o These are e.g. police departments
o Their own organization is strong
, Victimization and harm
Victim historically forgotten in criminology, but not anymore.
Since 1960; focus on vulnerable groups.
Mass media influence.
Victim surveys → very valuable since many countries do not have trustworthy police
statistics. Internationally comparable.
- 25% of citizens living in urban areas have suffered at least one form of victimization
over 1 year
- Higher levels of victimization in developing countries
- Victims in EU, US and Canada are much more likely to report their victimization to
police
o What is the reason for that? → corruption e.g. in Turkey
The extent of victimization
- Offenders commit offences within short distance of their own homes
- In nearly 50% of cases, offender is known to victim
- Social variation in crime victimization
o Socio-economic class: poor areas are most vulnerable to crime
o Age: 16-24 y to be victims
o Gender: male violence, women in the home
o Ethnicity: minorities face greater risk of victimization
Victim surveys: could be an exam question
PROS
- Measures both reported and unreported crime
- Independent of changes in reporting
- More information about how crime impacted victim
- Provides more victim characteristics
- More useful for comparative study
CONS
- You need to have a direct victim who can answer it
- Ignores cultural differences, depends on standardized concepts of crime and
victimization
- Not good on victimless crimes
- Not about all crimes → what about corporate crime
- Faulty memory
- Provides little information on offenders
- Not always information on CJS response if reported
- Only includes residents (not visitors)
Categories of ‘victim’ and ‘offender’ are not simple indicators of different types of people.
Criminalization = power to label something as crime / someone as criminal
Victimization = power to label someone as victim / something as harmed
- Individual level: incident > police > criminal justice process (or not)
- Societal level: norms/responses > law making and enforcement policies (or not)
Ideal victim = a person or category of individuals who, when hit by crime, most readily are
given complete and legitimate status of being a victim
- Weak, white, vulnerable, innocent, deserving of help, care, compassion
Victim blaming = holding the victim responsible and culpable for their own victimization
Missing white woman syndrome: news media only covers issues if: woman and white.
Massively overrepresented. Aboriginal women received three-and-a-half-time less coverage.
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