Lectures Introduction Criminology
Lecture 1, 10-09-2021
What is criminology?
- “At its widest and most commonly accepted (it) is taken to be the study of crime, criminals
and criminal justice”. teacher does not really agree with this definition.
- “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”.
better definition
- So: the study of crime and reactions to it, within it’s particular context
- In its origins an applied science: governmental concerns directed the research agenda
- Criminology as an object science: studies objects but from many disciplines.
interdisciplinary science
Origins:
- In 1789 the sciences started to develop within the French revolution. People started to think
for themselves.
- Classical criminologist (18th century): crime as a result of free will and cost-benefit analysis
(Becceria, Bentham). Rational thinking individual.
- First criminologists (19th century) are positivists: what contributing factors explain people
committing crimes? OR: What makes a ‘criminal’ different from a ‘civilized’ individual? They
should be treated to become normal again rehabilitate.
- Now we are more pessimistic
Criminology as an autonomous interdisciplinary field (20/21) century:
- Criminography (descriptive, measuring with statistics, historical, etc.)
- Aetiology (causes of crime: why does crime occur)
o Critical approaches (questioning definition of crime, power inequalities, working of
criminal justice system etc.) Why do we call something crime?
- Responses to crime:
o Social responses
o Crime prevention
o Penology (different kinds of punishment)
- Victimology: what does crime do to victims?
What is crime?
1. Legal definition
a. Tappan: “An intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law (statutory –
everything that is in the law- and case law – jurisprudence), committed without
defense or justification, and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor.”
b. Willem Adriaan Bonger (1976-1940): Crime is an serious anti-social act, to which the
state reacts by adding a certain kind of suffering (punishment)
2. Sociological definition
a. Thorsten Sellin (1938):
i. We need a scientific (not legal) criminology, and a scientific definition of
crime.
, ii. Search for universalities in norms and rule transgression: what things do
societies generally believe to be ‘wrong’?
iii. Moral/social component as starting point: crime as sociological problem
3. Social constructivist definition (more critical look at the definition):
a. Howard Becker (1963):
i. Why is some behavior criminalized, and other behavior not?
ii. What is seen as crime is ‘a product of the dynamics of a given society’:
‘Social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates
deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people labeling them as
outsiders.’
‘Crime is behavior so defined by the agents and activities of the powerful.’
b. Louk Hulsman (1986): abolitionism:
i. ‘Categories of ‘crime’ are given by the criminal justice system rather than by
victims of society in general. This makes it necessary to abandon the notion
of ‘crime’ as a tool in the conceptual framework of criminology. Crime has no
ontological reality (it does not exist) and is not the object but the product of
criminal policy.’ Our reactions to crime constitute what crime is, we make
crime by making those rules.
4. Human rights definition
a. Schwendiger & Schwendiger (1970): Human rights as a threshold: non-respect of
these rights constitutes crime:
i. Every action that hurts people’s human rights are perceived as a crime.
‘Individuals who deny these rights to others are criminal’
ii. ‘Imperialism, racism, sexism, and poverty can be called crimes according to
the logic of our argument.’
5. Harm definition
a. Lynch (1992); Beirne & South (1998); Hillayard & Steve Tombs (2007):
i. Crime is a legal construct (power!) and is anthropocentric (too much is
focused on the human species, animals and bacteria’s for example should
also be included).
ii. ‘Crime’ is the harms done to the environment, animals etc.
Thus: what constitutes ‘crime’ depends on the definition used…; the power struggles at play…; and
the time and place. The definition of crime is, thus, situational.
Who is the criminal?
Positivists (19th century): what differentiates the criminal from ‘civilized’ people?
- Biological positivism (19th century, Italian school, e.g. Lombroso): difference could be found in
someone’s biology. It is an evolutionary throwback. Lombroso: How your face looks, means
that those people commit crimes earlier falsified, he did not use control group.
- Psychological positivism: differences because of psychology. It is not just about your genes
and psyche and who you are, but also on how you were formed by your environment.
- Sociological positivism (19th century, French school, e.g. Quételet, 20 th cen. Chigaco School):
environment is included more. You, for example, commit crimes, because you have alcoholic
parents.
, Biases and gazes in criminology:
- In criminology we tend to overly focus on a certain kind of offender (‘criminological gaze’)
o Men rather than women; young rather than old; poor rather than rich; ethnic
minorities rather than ethnic majorities; ‘ugly’ rather than pretty; etc.
o As well as a certain kind of victim (‘ideal victim’)
o Stereotypes based on gender, age, class, ethnicity, nationality, education…
o Statistics: do they reflect crime, or the priorities of the police? And: which crimes are
most easily detected? (big dark number in crimes of the powerful)
o Media (next lecture)
Lecture 2, 17-09-2021
The politics of law and order: counting crime
- Crime statistics as currency
- Crime statistics as a social construct (it is not an objective thing because it is dependent of
the definition of crime, etc.:
‘(…) the matter of counting crime, including harms, becomes a subjective process.’ (Murphy
2020: 99)
- Dependent on definition of crime, record-keeping processes, measures, crime policy etc.
Dark figure/dark number of crime
- Not all crime ends up in the official statistics
- Attrition (see p.107) (more and more crime is lost in time during the process)
o Recognition (by victim/witness)
o Reporting (to the police)
o (Acknowledgments &) recording (by the police)
Every day, practical reasons: faltering systems, lack of time or capacity etc.
‘Mistakes’ and conscious manipulation of the numbers
- Statistics are not the objective measurement of crime that media sometimes presents them
to be.
The politics of law and order
- Crime policy has impact on crime figures
- And vice versa! Crime figures are ‘currency’
Role of the media in the construction of crime:
- ‘(…) media can both reflect and also fan public worries and anxieties about law and order
issues…’
- ‘… and the media may influence political discussions and responses to law and order issues’
- Is done through ‘Agenda-setting’; ‘framing’; stereotyping; ‘deviancy amplification spiral’
Framing:
‘Frames are basic cognitive structures which guide the perception and representation of reality (…) On
the whole, frames are not consciously manufactured but are unconsciously adopted in the course of
communicative processes.’ Media filter and direct societal discourse concerning crime, it makes us
look at it in a certain way.
