Test 1 Brown Book Ch 1 3 4 5 7 Chapter 1 Crime and Criminology Criminologist One who studies crime criminals and criminal behavior One who attempts to determine the causes of crime What is crime and how serious are different forms of it Crime and wrongdoing will defined in terms of harm rendered Our perceptions of wrongdoing will vary alone lines of gender religion race social class and many other circumstances o Moral assessments of behavior will shape our response Common Criteria for Assessing Crime Seriousness Harm inflicted What is the objective level of harm caused by the behavior Moral judgments What and whore moral judgments will influence the criminalization Status of victim Does the victim merit special protection by the law of behaviors and activation of the CJ process Offender characteristics What is the role of the background and circumstances of offenders Consensus model an important philosophical question is whether the criminal law reflects the interest of members of the society at large Does a consensus underlie our law s definition of what behaviors are criminal or is out law a reflection of conflict whereby the state serves the interest o some at the expense of others Often criminologists become frustrated with a public policy path in the crime arena that is largely uniformed and subject to manipulation by politicians and the media The problem that we face is that a large chasm separates the scientific findings of criminologists and the stances taken by political leaders Both gaining credibility and translating complex scientific findings to politically palatable policy statements remain quite a challenge for criminology Criminology as a Science Crime is a relative phenomenon conveying different thoughts and meaning to different people o Edwin Sutherland s classical delineation of the tripartite boundaries of criminology as the study of the processes of making laws breaking laws and reacting towards the breaking of laws Studying reactions to law breaking is essentially what has emerged in recent decades as the realm of criminal justice Criminology is increasingly influences by a sociological perspective that has made immense contributions to criminology Including biology psychology and economics Two essential components of a science are its theoretical and it methodological branches o Theory represents an effort to ecpalin or make sense of the worls thus revolving around the why of crime criminalization and similar concerns o Methodology refers to the techniques or methods that criminologists use as they attempt to determine the whys of crime Theory and methods are integrally related in the scientific method of studying crime Ideology Within Criminology Ideology refers to a set of beliefs or values that all of us develop usually unconsciously about the way that the world is or ought to be o Ideologies underlie religious political social and moral positions Current debate reflects relatively clear ideological lines regarding crime issues o Conservative and liberal views For criminologists the division is largely between various control and deterrence theorists on the one hand and social structure support theorists exert control over offenders while the structuralists support theorist identify way to provide more adequate opportunities for those whose environments press them toward crime o Different perspectives are seen within both parties Conservatives call for placing more people in prison for longer periods of time Liberals advocate enhancing social supports of those most at risk for delinquent or criminal behavior Religious views compromise another important part of this ideological underpinning permeating many public and policy views regarding crime o Brian Johnson and Sung Joon Jang 2012 recently made an excellent argument that removing the ideological blinders preventing careful empirical scrutiny of crime and religion variable is overdue Ideology rigidity often undermines both the practice of justice administration and criminological analysis o The changing definition of crime or relativity of law is largely driven by ideology o Relativity and ideology are deeply intertwined o Crime cannot be defined independent of an ideological framework and consequently any definition of crime favors some groups over others The Crime In Criminology Paul Tappan s legalistic definition o Crime is an intentional act in violation of the criminal law committed without defense or excuse and penalized by the state s a felony or misdemeanor o All contemporary criminologists view this as an exceeding restrictive definition Edwin H Sutherland dean of American criminology introduced the concept of white collar crime which modified the legalistic definition o The essential characteristics of crime is that is it behavior whish is prohibited by the State as an injury to the State and against whish the State may react at least as a last resort by punishment o Sutherland noted that an unlawful act is not defined as criminal by the fact that it is punished but by the fact that it is punishable o He argued that white collar crime meets such a legalistic definition because it is Hermann Mannheim and those of Thorsten Sellin Mannheim identified all antisocial punishable behavior as the subject matter o Similarly defining criminology as the study of violations of conduct norms only a subset of which are embodied in the criminal law at any given place and time The broadest criminological conceptualization of emanates from critical camp of criminologists o These perspectives are new and radical criminology which broadens criminological theory But new criminologists have asserted o Redefinition of crime on the basis of human rights requires explication of the content of such rights who violates them how and why Definitional parameters of criminology it can be seen reveal sharp contrasts that have dramatic implications for what criminologists do and do not study o One telling criticism of a strict legalistic definition of criminological parameters is that the law in action departs substantially from law in books o A more poignant criticism of the legalistic perspective is that restricting of attention to criminalized behaviors generates an artificial categorization of behavior The law is relative some harmful behaviors are legal while some The law then is a phenomenon that shrinks and expands through the innocuous actions are illegal political process o Crime is defined as a relative
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