CCJ 3011- Chapter OutlinesChapter 1I. Crime and Criminology-Ponzi scheme: Returning money to earlier investors with money received from subsequent investors. • Criminology- the scientific study of nature, extent, cause, and control of criminal behavior. - Criminology is an interdisciplinary science; Meaning it is involving two or more academic fields. - Most common is sociology• Criminal Justice - system made up of the agencies of social control, such as polive departments, the courts, and correctional institutions, that handle criminal offenders. - Subareas exist within the broader arena of criminology; together the subareas make up the criminological enterpriseII. Criminal Statistics/Crime Measurement- This subarea involved calculating the amounts and trends of criminal activity.- Common questions: How much crime occurs annually? Who commits it? When and where does it occur? Which crimes are the most serious?- criminologists interested in computing criminal statistics focus on creating valid and reliable measures of criminal behavior. 1. to analyze the activities of police and court agencies: they formulate techniques for collecting and analyzing institutional records.2. to measure criminal activity not reported to police by victims: develop survey instruments that estimate % of people who commit crimes, yet escape detection by the justice system.3. to identify victims of crime: create surveys designed to have victims report loss and injury4. to test theories: create databases to investigate the relationship between independent variable and dependent variable. III. Sociology of law/Law and Society/ Socio-Legal Studies- This subarea of criminology is concerned with the role that social forces play in shaping criminal law and the role of criminal law in shaping society. - criminologists interested in this area investigate the history of legal thought in an effort to understand how criminal acts (i.e theft, rape, murder) evolved in their present form. -Sex offender registration lists do not help deter potential offenders or reduce the incidence of child molestation. Research has shown it has little effect.IV. Developing Theories of Crime Causation• psychological- view crime as a function of personality, development, social learning, or cognition.• biological- correlates of antisocial behavior and study the biochemical, genetic, and neurological linkages to crime. • sociological- look at the social forces producing criminal behavior, including neighborhood conditions, poverty, socialization, and group interaction. - Criminologists also evaluate the impact that new laws have had on society after they have been in affect for a while.- Megan Laws: requires convicted sex-offenders to register with local law enforcement agencies whenever they move into a community: these provisions were created in memory of Megan Kanka who was killed in 1994 by a sex offender who moved unannounced into her New Jersey neighborhood. - Connecticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe (2003): US Supreme court upheld legality of sex offender registration. V. Understanding and Describing Criminal Behavior- Another subarea of criminology involved research on specific criminal types and patterns. : Violent crime, Theft crime, Public Order crime, Organized crime & so on- Marvin Wolfgang did a study on Patterns in Homicide. He did landmark analysis of the nature of homicide and the relationship between victim and offender. - Edwin Sutherland did an analysis of business-related offenses and helped coin a new phrase, white-collar crime, to describe economic activities of the affluent.• White-Collar Crime- Illegal acs that capitalize on a person’s status in the marketplace; These crimes may include: theft, embezzlement, fraud, market manipulation, restraint of trade, and false advertising. VI. Penology: Punishment, Sanctions, and Corrections• Penology- subarea of criminology that focuses on the correction and control of criminal offenders. • Rehabilitation- treatment of criminal offenders that is aimed at preventing future criminal behavior. • Capital Punishment- the execution of criminal offenders; the death penalty.• Mandatory Sentences- a statutory requirement that a certain penalty shall be carried out in all cases of conviction for a specified offense or series of offenses. - Samuel Gross research illustrates how important it is to evaluate penal measures such as capital punishment in order to determine their effectiveness and reliability. - Penologists evaluate the criminal justice system. Concept Summary 1.1 The Criminological Enterprise; The Discipline of Criminology• Criminal Statistics- gathering valid crime data. Devising new research methods; measuring crime patterns and trends.• Sociology of Law/ Law and Society/ Socio-legal Studies- determining the origin of law. Measuring the forces that can change laws and society.• Theory Construction- predicting individual behavior. Understanding cause of crime rates and trends. • Criminal Behavior Systems- determining the nature and cause of specific crime patterns. Studying violence, theft, organized crime, white-collar crime, and public-order crimes.• Penology: Punishment, Sanctions and Corrections- studying the correction and control of criminal behavior. Using scientific method to asses the effectiveness of criminal sanctions designed to control crime through the application of criminal punishments. • Victimology- studying the nature and cause of victimization. Aiding crime victims; understanding the nature and extent of victimization; developing theories of victimization risk. VII. Victimology• Victimology- the study of the victim’s role in criminal events. - Findings indicate criminals have been found to be at greater risk of victimization than noncriminals. - Rather than being passive targets “in wrong place at the wrong time” victims engaging in high-risk behavior increase their victimization risk and render them vulnerable to crime. - Victimologists try to understand why some people become crime victims. VIII. Classical Criminology• Cesare Beccaria (1738- 1794) one of the first scholars to develop a systematic understanding of why people commit crime. Believed in utilitarianism.• Utilitarianism - the view that people’s behavior is motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. When potential pleasure and reward outweigh likely pains of punishment. - Beccaria’s famous
View Full Document
Unlocking...