CRIMINOLOGY
A CONTEMPORARY INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: Introducing the landscapes of criminology
1.3 What is ‘criminology’?
Criminology is the study of crime, justice and law and order issues, and the broader dynamics
of societies in terms of informing how those things exist and are experienced. Social and
cultural context, the political climate, the nature of the economy, processes such as
globalisation and technological progress, a human rights agenda, and so on, must also be
considered when seeking to explore and understand the nature of crime and justice.
Criminology is interdisciplinary in nature: as a field of study it draws in the expertise and
knowledge of people working across many academic disciplines, as well many different areas
of employment.
1.4 Skills and competencies of a criminologist
The range of the skills that are required:
- Finding appropriate materials
- Using materials in an appropriate way
o Criminology is evidence-driven. This means that any claims or arguments
need to be supported by appropriate evidence. This involves appropriate
referencing.
- Being a critical enquirer
- Being a reflective learner
- Being a pragmatic researcher
- Being digitally competent
- Being an advocate for change
1.5 Key topics within criminology
The criminal justice system
The process through which the state responds to behaviour that is deems unacceptable.
Criminal Justice is delivered through a series of stages: charge, prosecution, trial, sentence,
appeal, punishment, these processes and the agencies which carry them out are referred to
collectively as the criminal justice system.
The various processes and agencies include law-making, enforcement of laws through
agencies such as the police, and then the processing, defence and sentencing of suspects via a
system involving the crown prosecution service and the court system, and the instruments for
delivering punishment, such as prison and probation.
1.6 What is ‘crime’?
A legal definition
Seeing the definition of crime only as an intentional act which breaks or goes against a law of
some sort, is not incorrect, but very limited. Criminologists point to a range of problems
associated with this, the legal definition. This is a transparent and clear guide for society to
follow, and a clear framework then for law and order practitioners to work with. The law
might be seen as a set of tools in place to protect the public, and ensure that society runs in
an orderly manner, but there are some issues.
It must also be considered that laws are not fixed or static. This, ten, means that what is
understood to be ‘crime’ must then also be fluid.
Also, the decision to criminalise certain behaviours has to be influenced by something. This
could be the pressure from the public, the media etc. This means, that things only become
defined as ‘crime’ once there has been enough of a reason for the State to react to it, and, even
then, criminalising some behaviours might be slow-down or blocked by powerful actors with
vested interests.
,The moral and social context of crime
Many damaging behaviours are not criminalised, while some groups in society are
disadvantaged by the needless criminalisation of certain behaviours (criminalisation of
homosexuality, abortion). Over the past years, the social and political climate changed. Often,
there is a moral component to how we understand behaviours and whether they are viewed
as being problematic.
The socially constructed nature of crime is how much of what is viewed as ‘crime’ is a product
of the dynamics of a given society at a given point in time. The notion of deviancy is
important and describes acts that are outside of the mainstream values and norms of a
society. They may be illegal of legal behaviours, but where they are legal, deviant behaviour
can often eventually become formally criminalised, once there is enough of a reaction against
it.
Beyond a legal definition of crime: harms
Some criminologists point to the harms caused by various behaviours that are often not dealt
with by law. Thus, instead of focusing explicitly on crime, some criminologist prefers to
utilise a harms-based approach to thinking about offending. This means that they can
consider a range of issues such as working conditions, whereby there is harm being carried
out against people and groups, and this demands some form of attention and action.
1.7 Types of crime
The very understanding of the concept of crime is significant in terms of who is thought of as
an offender, which acts are considered, who is a victim, and what should be done about it.
Label Notes
Acquisitive crimes Acts that involve the acquisition of gain of
property, money or anything else that is a
tangible reward.
Expressive crimes Acts that do not, seemingly, involve the
acquisition of goods, but instead, are linked
to emotions and emotional release, where
the act itself is the goal.
Property crimes Acts involving the acquisition of property or
damage to property.
Crimes against the person Crimes that directly involve an act against
an individual of group of people
Sexual offences Acts covering all manner of unwanted or
inappropriate sexual behaviour against a
person, or group, physical or otherwise
White-collar crime Acts committed by people usually in a work
context, for their own personal gain,
offending within respectable or status-based
professions, as opposed to ‘blue-collar’
workers (manual workers)
Corporate crime Acts committed by/on behalf of a company
that in some way benefit company goals
Crimes of the powerful Acts committed by those in positions of
power, where they are abusing their
position of power and acting with some
form of corruption and impunity
State crimes Acts committed, or commissioned, or
advocated in some way by the States to
achieve their goals
Peace crimes, including crimes against Acts that are so abhorrent or terrible, that
humanity they go against humanity as a whole, and
, they have their own label
Social harms Linked to the harms-based definition of
crime. Acts that harm communities or
specific groups of people and are often not
dealt with by formal laws
War crimes Acts committed during conflicts and wars,
whereby state actors breach domestic or
usually international laws regarding
warfare, and usually involve a disregard for
human rights
Status offences/crimes Acts that are prohibited, usually only for
certain groups or in the context of certain
conditions.
Hate crimes Acts committed where the victim of victims
are targeted because of their personal
characteristics
Cybercrime Acts committed using or facilitated by
emerging information and communication
technologies, typically the internet
Grabosky: new wine or old wine in a new bottle
Is the act being committed fundamentally a new act of crime: would it be impossible in all
senses, without the electronic platform or network? Or is it simply an older act occurring
through a new medium?
Chapter 2: ‘Theory’, and its uses
2.1 What is theory?
Theory is an explanation, or a model, or framework for understanding particular events or
processes. Thinking about theories, is a useful thing to do, because it can be helpful to
translate the word theory, into something more meaningful and straightforward.
When people talk about theory within criminology, they are thinking about how to
understand the nature of offending, that is, why people engage with crime. Theories that
allow us to talk about how crime comes about are labelled as aetiological theories of crime.
This means that they are concerned with causes of crime. All theories are based on a series of
assumptions of some kind. What al these aetiological theories do, is to take the legal
definitions and thus what is presented in law, as their starting point.
In addition to being concerned with why people commit crime, theory in criminology can
help us to consider and understand a range of different issues connected to crime, law and
order, and the broader nature of society. Theories within criminology are developed and used
extensively in relation to a range of different issues and concerns, particularly in relation to
offering understanding of explanation.
2.2 The ‘problems’ with theory
There are a lot of different problems with theory. The theories in criminology can be referred
as heuristic tools: This means that they are mental short cuts or simplifications for making
sense of something. They are usually unrealistic simplifications, but they are nevertheless
allowed for understanding by offering different viewpoint from which to look at the matters
of crime and justice.
Criminological theories can be used together to overcome the fact that they are
simplifications, in a process of synthesis to make sense of events in the real world. Different
theories might help to understand different aspects of events and processes and using more
than one theory fills in more of the gaps than using one in isolation.
, Recent writing on rational choice models of crime reflect this approach of synthesis, whereby
writers have recognised that the assumptions of early writhers in this area, did not take into
account the full complexity of human behaviour and decision-making processes.
2.3 Key examples of theories within criminology
Some of the early thinking about crime and law and order have persisted and still influence
criminologists today: Classicism and positivism are foundational schools of thought within
criminology. Classicism positions offending as a consequence of people choosing to commit
crime, based on them weighing-up situations and likely outcomes. Individuals are viewed as
rational actors, who are self-interested/selfish in their actions. Crime can be a chosen
behaviour if the situation presents it as a rational act.
Positivism on the other hand – individual positivism and social/sociological positivism are
two different strands of this – presents an opposite account of offending; people engage in
offending because they are influenced by forces outside of their own control/ some people do
not have the capacity to act rationally, but instead, internal forces of biology or psychology or
external forces of social conditions and culture can influence actions.
Classicist principles can be labelled as choice and decision-making. The analyses of
positivism can be labelled, related to individual/internal influences, and a third, related to
social influences. These can be labelled in a more expansive way as individual pathologies,
and social pathologies.
A fourth school of thought is critical approaches. Often influenced by Marxism. Critical
theories challenge the status quo, and ask questions of the role of the state, laws and the
criminal justice system. Within critical theories, how crime id defined, who are labelled as
offenders, and how crime is responded to, are often said to relate to inequality, power and
even social control.
A fifth way is a mixture of influences of the first four theories. This can be called integrated
approaches, because they integrate aspects of the other blocks.
The blocks of theory
The important aspects are what they suggest about why crime occurs, and therefore what we
should do about crime, and the wider nature of society.
Block one: choice and decision-making
Theories that present offending in relation to choices and decisions made by an offender,
often as part of a rational decision-making process in some form: people actively choose to
commit crime because of the expected outcome. Classicism is a kay area. Understanding
crime in that way means that in responding to crime we should look to make offending more
difficult, and make the punishment outweigh the gains of crime to discourage offenders.
Block two: individual pathologies
Theories within which offending is viewed as a consequence in some way of biological or
psychological abnormalities of an offender. Here, the notion of positivism is used extensively.
Within such accounts, crime must be dealt with through treating or rehabilitating offenders
to remove the abnormalities or pathology that has caused the offending.
Block three: social pathologies
In the same way that the individual pathologies block presents offending as a consequence of
abnormality, this blocks also presents offending as an outcome of pathology, but this time in
the context of processes outside an individual. Pathologies of a community, a culture, or
social structures/a society more widely can be considered. Positivism is also used, but this
time it is usually termed social/sociological positivism.
Block four: critical approaches
Theories that present crime in the context of wider social processes, such as inequality, class,
power and marginalisation of some groups. Crime becomes a mechanism for responding or
