CriminologyChap1.ppt

Chapter 1
What is Criminology?
Frank Schmalleger

Criminology Today, 5th ed
Frank Schmalleger
© 2009 Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
All Rights Reserved.
2
What is Crime?
Four definitional perspectives
 Legalistic
 Political
 Sociological
 Psychological

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What is Crime?
 Perspective is important because it
determines the assumptions we make and
the questions we ask
 This book uses the legalistic perspective

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Legalistic Perspective
 Crime is defined as:
Human conduct in violation of the criminal
laws of a state, the federal government, or a
local jurisdiction that has the power to make
such laws

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Shortcomings of the Legalistic
Perspective
 Yields moral high ground to those with power
who ensure they escape the label of “criminal”
 Insists that the nature of crime and the nature
of law cannot be separated – not all immoral
acts are contravened by statute
 Fails to recognize that formal law did not
always exist

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Political Perspective
 Crime - the result of criteria that have been built
into the law by powerful groups and are then used
to label selected undesirable forms of behavior as
illegal
 Laws serve the interests of the politically powerful
 Crimes are behaviors those in power perceive as
threats to their interests

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Sociological (Sociolegal)
Perspective
 Crime – an antisocial act of such a nature
that its repression is necessary or is
supposed to be necessary to the
preservation of the existing system of
society
 Crime is an offense against human
relationships first, a violation of law
second

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Psychological (Maladaptive)
Perspective
 Crime - problem behavior, especially
human activity that contravenes the
criminal law and results in difficulties in
living within a framework of generally
acceptable social arrangements
 Includes any harmful or potentially
harmful behaviors

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Crime and Deviance
 Deviant behavior –
any activity that
violates social norms
 Deviance and crime
overlap – not identical
 Unusual dress styles =
deviance
 Indecent exposure =
crime

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What Should be Criminal?
 Lack agreement about appropriate legal
status of many behaviors
 Two contrasting perspectives
 Consensus
 Pluralist

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Perspectives
Consensus
 Laws are enacted to
criminalize given forms of
behavior when agreed
upon by members of
society
 Most applicable to
homogeneous societies
Pluralist
 Behaviors typically
criminalized through a
political process, after
debate over appropriate
course of action
 Legislation, appellate
court action
 Most applicable to diverse
societies

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What Do Criminologists Do?
 Criminologist – studies crime, criminals
and criminal behavior
 Criminalist – a specialist in the collection
and examination of the physical evidence
of crime
 Criminal Justice Professionals – do
the day-to-day work of the criminal justice
system

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Academic/Research
Criminologists
Characteristics of academic and research
criminologists
 Ph.D. in criminology, criminal justice, or
related field
 Teach in colleges and universities
 Most conduct research designed to
advance criminological knowledge
 Most write for publication in journals

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 Text’s definition of criminology:
An interdisciplinary profession built around
the scientific study of crime and criminal
behavior, including their manifestations,
causes, legal aspects, and control
 Focus on causes of criminality

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Social scientific discipline Interdisciplinary

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Criminal Justice
 Criminal justice:
 Application of the criminal law and study of
the components of the justice system
 Police, courts, corrections
 Focus on control of lawbreaking

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Theoretical Criminology
 Subfield of general criminology
 Primarily found in colleges and universities
 Posits explanations for criminal behavior

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 Theory
Made up of clearly stated propositions that
posit relationships, often of a causal sort,
between events and things under study
 Criminologists have developed many
theories to explain and understand crime

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 General theory – tries to explain
all/most forms of crime through a single
overarching approach
 Integrated theory – tries to explain
crime by merging concepts from different
sources

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Criminology and Social Policy
 Social policy includes government
initiatives, programs, plans to address
problems in society
 Should be linked to objective findings of
well-conducted criminological research

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Social Policy and Public Crime
Concerns
 Concern about crime not always related to
actual incidence of crime
 Crime rates declining since mid-1990s
 Polls show majority of respondents believe crime
more prevalent today than a year ago
 Crime, terrorism, national security major concerns
in U.S. today
 Concern about crime an important factor in
determining public policy – political agendas
focusing on reducing crime well-received

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Theme of This Book
Social Problems
 Crime a manifestation of
social problems
 Public health model to
deal with crime
 Large-scale government
expenditures
 Social programs
addressing roots of crime
 Macro approach
Social Responsibility
 People responsible for
own behavior, choose
crime over other
legitimate options
 Personalized crime
reduction strategies
 Micro approach

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Social Context of Crime
 Each crime has a unique set of
 Causes
 Consequences
 Participants
 Some people more affected than others
 Crime provokes reactions from many
sources

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Making Sense of Crime
Crime is a social event
 Crime is not an isolated individual activity
 Crime is a social construction
 Crime may have many causes and many
meanings

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Social Relativity
 Crime is socially relative:
Social events are interpreted differently
according to the cultural experiences and
personal interests of the initiator,
observer, or recipient of the behavior
 Crime means different things to different
people

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Causes and Consequences of
Crime

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Causes and Consequences of
Crime
Crime results from the coming together of
inputs provided by
 Offender
 Justice system
 Victim
 Society

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Offender Contributions
 Background features
 Life experiences
 Biology and personality
 Values/beliefs
 Skills/knowledge
 Foreground contributions
 Motivation
 Intent
 State of mind (drug-induced)

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Justice System Contributions
 Background contributions - failure to:
 Prevent crime
 Identify/inhibit specific offenders
 Prevent release of recidivists
 Immediate contributions – features of situation
 Presence/absence of police officers
 Availability of official assistance
 Willingness of officers to intervene pre-crime
 Response time

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Victim Contributions
 Background contributions
 Passive presence
 Active contributions through lifestyle
 Victim precipitation
 Active victim participation in initial stages of
criminal event
 Victim instigates chain of events resulting in
victimization

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Society’s Contributions
 Background contributions
 Generic social practices and conditions
 Socialization process
 Foreground contributions
 Distribution of resources
 Accessibility of services

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Immediate Effects of Crime
 Outputs affect all parties involved
 Impact affected by perceptual filters
 Results in ongoing interpretations before,
during, after crime
 Everyone associated with a crime engages in
interpretations

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Integrative Approach to Crime
 Attempt to identify and understand
multiple causes of crime
 Highlight the processes involved in the
criminal event as it unfolds
 Analyze the interpretation of the crime
phenomenon

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Integrative Approach to Crime
Crime viewed along a temporal continuum
as an emergent activity that:
 Arises out of past complex causes
 Assumes a course that builds upon
immediate interrelationships among
everyone involved
 Elicits a formal response from the justice
system, shapes public perceptions, and
may give rise to changes in social policy

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The Primacy of Sociology?
Most criminologists operate primarily from a
sociological perspective
 Many theories of criminal behavior based
in sociology
 E.g., the social problems/social
responsibility dichotomy

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The Primacy of Sociology?
 Advantages
 Crime is a social phenomenon
 Much contemporary criminology rests on tradition of
social scientific investigation
 Problems
 Reluctant to accept findings from other disciplines
 Frequently unable to integrate these findings into
existing sociological understandings of crime
 Unable to show effective ways to control crime

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Conclusion
 Crime an “emergent phenomenon” – very
complex
 Criminology must focus on understanding
the social phenomenon of crime
 Crime includes many different forms of
behavior, each subject to personal,
political, definitional vagaries

CriminologyChap1.ppt

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