This summary includes the lectures and the readings of the course Introduction to Criminology. It discusses the stands of classicism, positivism and critical criminology on criminals and offenders. It also discusses green criminology, victimhood, crime in the media and crimes by the powerful. Conce...
A good criminologist is critical, reflective and pragmatic.
Criminology = the study of crime and the reactions to it, within its particular context.
- Criminology emerged as an applied science because states needed to manage crime.
Classical criminologists = crime is a result of free will and cost-benefit analysis
- E.g. Beccaria and Bentham.
Positivists criminologists = what are the contributing factors that make someone a criminal.
- E.g. Lombroso.
Criminography = descriptive
Aetiology = causes of crime
What is crime?
- Legal definition = the violation of criminal law
- Sociological definition = what society deems ‘wrong’. It has a social and moral component. It
is seen as deviant behavior.
- Social constructivists = crime is what we define it as such.
- Abolitionism = crime has no ontological reality and is not the object but the product of
criminal policy.
Schwendiger & Schwendiger spoke on the idea that human rights violations should be the basis for
crime. This is nowadays called human justice.
Harm definition (Lynch) = crime is a legal construct and is anthropocentric. Crime should be replaced
with harm and not only directed to humans.
Who is a criminal?
- Lombroso would say you would see it in someone features.
College 2: assumptions, biases and realities
Classic school of criminology:
- After the industrial revolution, the world is changing.
- Child of enlightenment.
- Jeremy Bentham and Beccaria = maximize pleasure and minimize pain (utilitarianism)
o Beccaria = law should not be repressive or viewed by society as being overly harsh.
Instead, it should seek to be legitimate and fair in how people are treated, regardless
of who they are.
Punishment will follow crime. It should be delivered quickly once an offender
is found guilty. The punishment is proportionate to the harm caused by the
offending.
o Bentham = people are fundamentally selfish. They will engage in crime if the
perceived rewards outweigh the risks.
- Crime is a result of free will, decisions based on circumstances.
- Humans are rational beings
- Focus is on crime
- Punishment is rational, civilized, certain, swift and severe.
- DETTERENCE IS KEY FOR BENTHAM AND BECCARIA. BETTER TO PREVENT THAN PUNISH.
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, Rational choice theory = crime is a consequence of an active decision-making process.
- Must consider bounded rationality.
Routine activity theory = time and space analysis demonstrate the decision making and rationality
principle in the context of specific crime events. At the core, there must be
1. A motivated offender
2. A suitable target
3. The absence of capable guardianship.
Neoclassical school:
- Shift from free will and rational perspective to liability.
o Children and crazy people are not liable because they are not rational.
Positivism school of criminology: deterministic
- Late 19th and early 20th century. Hard science made its uprising.
o Positivism looks for regularities and rules, forming laws. Not everyone can be a
criminal. There is something wrong with criminals and that is why they offend.
Offenders are not rational. The pathology must be treated.
- Focus on the criminal instead of the crime
- Punishment was treatment and rehabilitation.
- Lombroso = atavism and the biological traits of the criminal
- Freud = ego/super ego/id
Biosocial approach (Eysenck) = personalities
Social learning theory
Differential association (Sutherland) = criminal behavior is learned through environments and
cognitive variables.
Social pathological and sociological positivism: link between the social and the individual.
- 20th century, world war, prohibition, capitalist ea.
- Crime is explained through societal structures and community dynamics.
- Chicago School = zonal hypothesis model showed how crime varied according to location
within the city.
- Anomie and Strain theory = the discrepancy created when you see goals, but you do not have
the means to achieve these goals.
o Durkheim = anomie = describes how individuals normative framework can disappear
as the nature of society changes.
o Merton = strain = the discrepancy between wanting to obtain something everyone
has and not being able to acquire the means for it. How to deal with this?
Innovation
Rebellion
Retreatism.
Subcultures (Cohen) = a collective response to processes of strain. Rejecting the mainstream culture
Neutralization (Matza) = subculture still holds on to mainstream culture because they drift in and out
of criminal behavior.
Critical criminology: power and equality
- Marxism = crime and social inequality. Keeps the status quo in place.
- Questioning class, inequality and criminalization
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