Introduction into Criminology 2023/2024
Terms & concepts
Murphy
Chapter 1:
Interdisciplinarity of criminology: 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.
Criminology tutors and researchers come to the field from different study backgrounds, covering
sociology, psychology, law, social policy, economics, geography, history, criminology itself and related
professions.
Harm vs. crime:
Harm: comes in many different forms: physical, psychological, emotional, social, and so on.
Some criminologists prefer to utilize a harms-based approach to thinking about offending. This
means that criminologists can consider a range of issues, such as working conditions,
environmental damage, health damage, and so on, whereby there is clearly harm being carried
out against people and groups that demands some form of attention and action.
Crime: an intentional act which breaks or goes against a law of some sort (legal definition).
Criminal justice system: important feature that is the process through which the state responds to
behavior that it deems unacceptable. Charge, prosecution, trial, sentence, appeal and punishment.
All mentioned crime labels table 1.2:
Acquisitive crimes: acts that involve the ‘acquisition’ or gain of property, money or anything
else that is a tangible reward. They might include theft, robbery, burglary, fraud, and so on.
Expressive crimes: acts that do not, seemingly, involve the acquisition of goods, but instead
are linked to emotions and emotional release: anger, frustration, etc., where the act itself is the
goal. They are often violent or sexual in nature.
Property crimes: acts involving the acquisition of property or damage to property. So, in
addition to acts such as theft and robbery, this includes criminal damage, vandalism, and so on.
Crimes against the person: crimes that directly involve an act against an individual, or group
of people, such as a violent or sexual act.
Sexual offences: acts covering all manner of unwanted or inappropriate sexual behaviors
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, e.g., theft and fraud. Offending in respectable or status-based professionals, as
opposed to ‘blue-collar’ (manual) workers.
Corporate crime: acts committed by or on behalf of a company that in some way benefits
company goals. This includes financial transactions, but also negligence, ‘industrial
espionage’, not adhering to health and safety or environmental regulations, etc.
Crimes of the powerful: acts committed by those in positions of ‘power’, such as
governments, corporations and business figures, when they abuse their position of power and
act with some form of corruption and impunity.
, State crimes: acts committed, commissioned or advocated in some way by the States
(government and associated institutions of government) to achieve their goals.
‘Peace crimes’, including crimes against humanity: acts that are so abhorrent or terrible that
they go against humanity, and thus have their own label. The United Nations sets out what
they entail, but they include genocide, systematic torture, and so on.
Social harms: linked to the ‘harms-based’ definition of crime, above. 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, when State actors (usually the military
and intelligence agencies) breach domestic or usually international laws regarding warfare and
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. Often, this is the instance of young people having their behaviors
regulated.
Hate crimes: acts committed where victims are targeted because of their personal
characteristics: age, gender, religion, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, and so on.
Cybercrime: acts committed using or facilitating by information and communication
technologies, typically the Internet.
Social construction of crime: how much of what is viewed as ‘crime’ is a product of the dynamics of
a given society at a given point in time.
One harmful behavior is criminalized in many countries, while arguably more harmful behavior is not
(example: cannabis is considered harmful while some forms of alcohol are not) (Definition chapter 5).
Intersectionality: describes the ways in which systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination ‘intersect’ to
create unique dynamics and effects.
Chapter 2:
Aetiology: theories that are concerned with the causes of crime. All theories are based on a series of
assumptions of some kind. The aetiological theories take the legal definitions and thus what is
presented in law, as their starting point.
Classicism and rational actors/rational choice: classicism positions offending because 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
behavior if the situation presents it as a rational act.
Pathology and social structures: relates to sociological positivism. Offending as an outcome of
processes outside and individual. Individuals are influenced by their wider environments (block 3).
Pathology means that ‘criminals’ are different from non-criminals in some way.
Individual positivism: individual pathologies, where positivism is an important idea. Forwarding
explanations based on the difference of, and thus the pathology of offenders (block 2)
Social/sociological positivism: influence of social processes upon individuals became more
important. Criminologists have considered arguments related to communities and societies (block 3).
, Social control: a social control argument is offered by some of the theories, that is, criminalisation
and responses to crime serve to control elements of the population.
Integrated approaches: mixture of influences of the first four blocks. They integrate aspects of the
other blocks (block 5).
Critical approaches: often influenced by Marxism. Critical theories challenge the status quo and ask
for 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 social control (block 4).
Inequality, class, power, marginalization: critical approaches (block 4) present crime in the context
of wider social processes, such as inequality, class, power and the marginalization (the act of treating
someone or something as if they are not important) of some groups. In such instances, crime becomes
a mechanism for responding or surviving for some groups.
Positivism: 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.
Criminalization: the process by which behaviors and individuals are transformed into crime and
criminals. Processes of criminalization are highlighted in the critical approaches.
Chapter 3:
Social and economic inequalities: push and pull people towards offending. Perhaps there are no other
legitimate routes for people to take to obtain things they want or desire. In some communities, crime is
normalized, and in such communities, offending is simple part of life.
Consumerist society: people choose to commit crime out of greed, for their own personal gain, even
though other paths are open to them, perhaps influenced by a consumerist society.
Structure v. agency:
Structure: explanations that view individuals as being shaped by forces around them,
including social forces and structures. The notion of structure is important. Process where
individuals’ lives are constrained and shaped.
Agency: Some individuals have high levels of choice and freedom in determining their own
actions. Process where individuals can exercise choice and power.
All five blocks of criminological 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.
1) 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 key 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.
2) Individual pathologies: theories withing which offending is viewed consequently 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
